Joke Situation w/ Profit motivated races

drquirky

Was just looking at results from yesterday and have to say was a bit shocked by the split in club vs. profit oriented races. You had the Lucan 5k and the Kildare mara/ half/10k all really well attended by club runners and displaying a good distribution of times- Then if you look at the results from the "Fit City" race in the PP- you have 5 or 6 "elites/ sub elites" in the 30-32 range for 10k/ maybe 6 or 7 club runners, then the results literally fall off a cliff.

To put it into perspective- you could run just barely sub 40 of this race and still finish in a top 15 that includes Mark Christie and John Coughlan and Sergiu Ciabanu.....this is an absolutely ridiculous situation. You essentially have races that are being run by a large number of fun runners and a very small 5 or 6 max group of elites trying to pick up the prize money (presumably).... It just seems so counter productive to good running in Ireland. Why do these big "fun runs" even bother trying to attract elites- and aren't they stealing the cream of Irish distance running from the clubs? What can be done about this???

tunguska

I agree with you but that there is a can of worms your opening DrQ.

ger664

Kildare is a for profit race.
Elites will go for the biggest prize money available and can you really blame them.
Next set will pick a race that elites won't attend so they can pick some prize money.
Club runners will in general run in club run events where possible.
The large volume of "fun runners" as you call them will go to the race that they know about.

Is it fair ? No but thats life.
What can be done.
Offer bigger prize money and get the word out about your event.

PaulieC

I did the Kildare 10k and a sub-40 there would've bagged you 8th place, so is that not, in effect, a lower quality race ?

Timmaay

drquirky wrote: »

Was just looking at results from yesterday and have to say was a bit shocked by the split in club vs. profit oriented races. You had the Lucan 5k and the Kildare mara/ half/10k all really well attended by club runners and displaying a good distribution of times- Then if you look at the results from the "Fit City" race in the PP- you have to 5 or 6 "elites/ sub elites" in the 30-32 range for 10k/ maybe 6 or 7 club runners, then the results literally fall off a cliff.

To put it into perspective- you could run just barely sub 40 of this race and still finish in a top 15 that includes Mark Christie and John Coughlan and Sergiu Ciabanu.....this is an absolutely ridiculous situation. You essentially have races that are being run by a large number of fun runners and a very small 5 or 6 max group of elites trying to pick up the prize money (presumably).... It just seems so counter productive to good running in Ireland. Why do these big "fun runs" even bother trying to attract elites- and aren't they stealing the cream of Irish distance running from the clubs? What can be done about this???

I think its great that the lads got afew quid for their day out, once it helps progress their training long term and achieve goals like representing Ireland then surely its all good! Zero disrespect to Lucan ac, but lets face it club 5ks as such are usually run as club fundraisers and aren't really targeting the elites. I know in our club, we would rather our best athletes concentrated on doing national events over our own local club races, if they can get time to do the club races, without sacrificing theirown training/target events etc, that is great, similarly if they want to do some commercial race and get afew quid prize money that is fine also.

drquirky

Timmaay wrote: »

I think its great that the lads got afew quid for their day out, once it helps progress their training long term and achieve goals like representing Ireland then surely its all good! Zero disrespect to Lucan ac, but lets face it club 5ks as such are usually run as club fundraisers and aren't really targeting the elites. I know in our club, we would rather our best athletes concentrated on doing national events over our own local club races, if they can get time to do the club races, without sacrificing theirown training/target events etc, that is great, similarly if they want to do some commercial race and get afew quid prize money that is fine also.

Yeah I agree that its great the top lads are getting paid- issue I have is the organisers cynically paying the top guys- pretending the race had a "great field" and promoting it as an important race on the Irish calendar. In reality races like these "Fit City" ones are cynical exercises in profit making. They pass off vapid celebs like Sile Seoige et al as "runners" and do nothing to increase real participation in athletics or even serious running, beyond the whole show up for a race or two a year crowd who go on temporary "fit kicks" that involve running one year and Zumba the next... It is just really sad to see a 4 minute gap in the middle of a race w/ 600 people- just sucks that's all. TBH I wish some more of the club races/ more runner oriented races would pony up some decent prize money so we wouldn;t have to see the cringe worthy spectacle of 4 or 5 elites in a fun run

Krusty_Clown

ger664 wrote: »

Kildare is a for profit race.

According to this, "The Kildare Marathon is set up as a not for profit company".

RacoonQueen

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

According to this, "The Kildare Marathon is set up as a not for profit company".

Didn't have an AI permit though. Reportedly....

PVincent

So Fit mag are doing nothing to promote participation in running or healthy lifestyle.

I suppose a weekly supplement that has good articles about running, advice from experts, lots of race reports, full diary of races, nutritional advice, features on clubs, psychology advice on running, stories from lesser runners like most of the population, organising races in 3 cities, ...yeah you are right , they are doing nothing...
In my opinion and a lot of running people that I know Fit mag is one of the best developments to happen for athletics in years.
Without it what coverage does our sport get. Yes once a month a tame Irish runner mag.

Have a little think before you are so critical of something that has our sport in lights every week. The Indo were very clever for getting it of the ground realising the boom in the sport of athletics/running can help them keep their own ship afloat and they deserve great credit for that.

Timmaay

drquirky wrote: »

TBH I wish some more of the club races/ more runner oriented races would pony up some decent prize money so we wouldn;t have to see the cringe worthy spectacle of 4 or 5 elites in a fun run

Ok good point there in fairness, what sort of prizemoney are we talking about? A club putting in prizemoney is a big risk to be honest, I've seen club committee members break their backs organizing races with big prize funds, only to either make a loss or just about breakeven. The model alot of club 5k seem to go on now is less emphasis on prizemoney/elite fields, and more on targeting the casual joggers, and this trust me often is hell of alot easier and safer way to make afew quid for the club!

I'm certainly not trying to argue against you here, just spelling out the situation as is currently. I've ranted here before about Athletics Irelands lack of support of the club races over these "cringe worthy races", I suppose an on the ground solution would be next time your talking to any of your friends who are casual joggers, make the point of trying to get them to go do a local club race, as oppose to any of the likes of these bigger purely commercial races.

RacoonQueen

PVincent wrote: »

So Fit mag are doing nothing to promote participation in running or healthy lifestyle.

I suppose a weekly supplement that has good articles about running, advice from experts, lots of race reports, full diary of races, nutritional advice, features on clubs, psychology advice on running, stories from lesser runners like most of the population, organising races in 3 cities, ...yeah you are right , they are doing nothing...
In my opinion and a lot of running people that I know Fit mag is one of the best developments to happen for athletics in years.
Without it what coverage does our sport get. Yes once a month a tame Irish runner mag.

Have a little think before you are so critical of something that has our sport in lights every week. The Indo were very clever for getting it of the ground realising the boom in the sport of athletics/running can help them keep their own ship afloat and they deserve great credit for that.

So you agree with them hosting a race, on the same day, a few miles away from a club race thats been run for years?

Fit mag put their name to it to promote it. It is still a for profit race.

PVincent

How many of the fit field would have done Lucan. 10/20 maybe.

Genuinely believe there is too much made of the clashes. All Races are attracting numbers. Lucan is a unique club race that attracts a certain category of club runners and its a good race but its not one that the newer jiggers will do. Much easier to pay a bit more a run in the park where they will be more at ease. And that is their choice and you cannot argue against it . Running is about enjoyment for the majority and if the fit race is what they will enjoy they should not be knocked for choosing it .

Seanie_H

RacoonQueen wrote: »

So you agree with them hosting a race, on the same day, a few miles away from a club race thats been run for years?

Well the other side of the Fit Mag event is that 500+ people ran an event that they wouldn't have ran otherwise. With the exception of the elite level, it's making running more accessible.

I doubt many people would have been happy with all those people turning up in Lucan. Then it would be another thread on how fun runners ruin events.


BTW: I've no idea why people put up with such an expensive race with Fit Mag. You could run to Park Run, do a 5 km and then run home for free.

clear thinking

The for profit races are cashing in on the supposed boom in running. If suckers want to pay thats the market.

Once the craze wears off you might end up with one or two mini-marathon / brendan foster type races where punters go for a jog and a pint and part with €40 for the pleasure.

Meanwhile club races will continue, as will the marthon, long after that "rock and roll" rubbish disappears. Clubs were never getting that money before anyway.

TRR

Is there an argument for FIT magazine trying to push the club races more and try and show newcomers that they are accessible? In fairness to them they do cover the club races already. I guess the clubs need to be proactive and maybe ask fit to highlight their race in advance!

I've zero interest in fit magazine but it's not aimed at club runners like me. It's aimed at newcomers for the most part. Overall I say fair play to them. As mentioned above it does show case athletics.

clear thinking

TRR wrote: »

Is there an argument for FIT magazine trying to push the club races more and try and show newcomers that they are accessible? In fairness to them they do cover the club races already. I guess the clubs need to be proactive and maybe ask fit to highlight their race in advance!

I've zero interest in fit magazine but it's not aimed at club runners like me. It's aimed at newcomers for the most part. Overall I say fair play to them. As mentioned above it does show case athletics.

It's well known that journos love pre prepared articles with lots of waffly quotes from runners sponsors and organisers so they can minimise their work, it would be extra work for clubs, but would pay off if the coverage is available.

Speedtrap

Clubs need to sell the sport and go out to attract new blood. Spot prizes dispersed through the finishers would help reward more than just elite. If the ordinary club runners and new casuals were not attending races there would be no loot to pay prizes. In fairness club events are good for category prizes. Its the expensive commercial races that dont have any social "afters" or prizes other than 1st 3 men and women.

Birdsong

Speedtrap wrote: »

Clubs need to sell the sport and go out to attract new blood. Spot prizes dispersed through the finishers would help reward more than just elite. If the ordinary club runners and new casuals were not attending races there would be no loot to pay prizes. In fairness club events are good for category prizes. Its the expensive commercial races that dont have any social "afters" or prizes other than 1st 3 men and women.

Interesting discussion, yesterday in Lucan we had 4 Category prizes for men & women, as well as team prizes and spot prizes so a lot on offer. More than 20 prizes all told.

The social "afters" as you put it is defiantly something you don't get at a commercial race, and what I personally think makes doing club races special. People of various clubs chatting over a cup of tea & slice of brack discussing their various races Our neighbours in Le Cheile set a high bar for the post race catering, this is some thing you surely don't get in a commercial race.

MrCreosote

drquirky wrote: »

TBH I wish some more of the club races/ more runner oriented races would pony up some decent prize money so we wouldn;t have to see the cringe worthy spectacle of 4 or 5 elites in a fun run

Just don't understand your attitude. Why do you get so worked up about this? There's nothing "cringe-worthy" about a fun run. Any runner bar a professional is a "fun runner" by definition. People seem to be so elitist about their sport that they get all defensive once there's a bit of mass participation.

Mass participation is the tide that will cause all the boats to rise. If running is normalised as a sport you'll get a better standard across the board as time goes on.

drquirky

MrCreosote wrote: »

There's nothing "cringe-worthy" about a fun run. Any runner bar a professional is a "fun runner" by definition.

Yeah I agree- very little "cringe worthy" about a mass participation run per se - what is cringey is the massive gap in between the winning group and the rest of the field- it's either a race or it isn't and the "Fit City" thing certainly wasn't a "race in any sense I'm familiar with.

Oh and the celebrity back slapping w/ Keith Duffy/ Sile Seoige/ Clodagh McKenna "Body" Byrne etc etc is seriously cringe worth as well but that's probably a different discussion....It doesn't promote the sport to appear as not a proper sport....

robinph

The clubs could be making use of these mass participation races and handing out flyers at the end promoting their 10km races that are half the price and have better cake, and also talking to people about joining the club. There are very few club runners listed in the results of the Fit race, outside of the first few, and if any of those punters further down the field are then looking at the results it would just strengthen the common belief that "I'm not good enough to join a club" as it makes it appear that only the top five lads are good enough to run with a club.

average_runner

robinph wrote: »

The clubs could be making use of these mass participation races and handing out flyers at the end promoting their 10km races that are half the price and have better cake, and also talking to people about joining the club. There are very few club runners listed in the results of the Fit race, outside of the first few, and if any of those punters further down the field are then looking at the results it would just strengthen the common belief that "I'm not good enough to join a club" as it makes it appear that only the top five lads are good enough to run with a club.

Clubs do that already. Lucan Harriers were handy out leaflets at alot of races over the last few months.

I think a Club summer league is the way to go. Add le Cheile, Tallaght, Lucan races into a league.

drquirky

robinph wrote: »

There are very few club runners listed in the results of the Fit race, outside of the first few, and if any of those punters further down the field are then looking at the results it would just strengthen the common belief that "I'm not good enough to join a club" as it makes it appear that only the top five lads are good enough to run with a club.

Very good point there...

Clum

The huge majority of people using running to keep fit couldn't care less about running clubs and championships and have no affiliation with running clubs. And they don't need to. For these people events like the City Series, Great Ireland and Rock n Roll are a great attraction. They get to run an official event and not have to worry about looking slow or out of shape or feeling unfit, or whatever.

When Fit 4 Life started a few years ago it introduced a lot of the non-club affiliated runners to running clubs. None of them were going to run championship events, they just wanted help in getting fit, and lowest common denominator events like those held in the Phoenix Park introduced them to running races.

I've noticed recently that some people who joined Fit 4 Life in my club have actually advaned quite a bit and have not just gone through the Couch to 5k programs and completed local 5ks but have gone on to run half marathons and marathons and are now running quite quick 5ks. A few are even challenging some seasoned club runners.

If the for-profit events, which mainly attract newcomers to running, continue to attract beginners and help them advance their running then that's a good thing.

As for the quicker club runners choosing an event like City Series over a club 5k that's the individual's choice and nothing to do with the event management. The best thing to come from Sunday's race in the Park was not that it got 500 people out running but that it was a huge boost to Mark Christie. He's a talented runner who almost packed it all in. He made a come back, won a fairly high profile (in one newspaper anyway) race and got some money for his efforts. Hopefully this will encourage Mark to train harder, get back in to running for Ireland and Irish Athletics will have made a gain from this. I don't think he'd be as encouraged if he won a local 5k event.

antomagoo

: The Kildare Marathon are donating 200 complimentary race
entries to our charities

Because that's exactly what charities need.....

nerraw1111

antomagoo wrote: »

Because that's exactly what charities need.....

You missed the rest of that:

"The Kildare Marathon are donating 200 complimentary race
entries to our charities and other local community groups that
assist in making the event happen. We have made donations
to the Kildare Athletics Association and to The Defence
Forces Charity fund. We also pay local sports clubs and local
community groups who assist us with marshalling duties. To
date the Run Kildare Team have donated over €100,000 to
good causes in the local Kildare area."

The entries are given to charities to allow them to raise funds for their charities. At the very least it's probably raised 200 x the entry fee. So instead of €30 or whatever going on the entry fee, it goes straight to the charity.

antomagoo

nerraw1111 wrote: »

You missed the rest of that:

"The Kildare Marathon are donating 200 complimentary race
entries to our charities and other local community groups that
assist in making the event happen. We have made donations
to the Kildare Athletics Association and to The Defence
Forces Charity fund. We also pay local sports clubs and local
community groups who assist us with marshalling duties. To
date the Run Kildare Team have donated over €100,000 to
good causes in the local Kildare area."

The entries are given to charities to allow them to raise funds for their charities. At the very least it's probably raised 200 x the entry fee. So instead of €30 or whatever going on the entry fee, it goes straight to the charity.

Yeah fair cop, I was being a bit selective there. Just in a cynical kind of mood today

bigslice

Its easy to dismiss the "big branded" events like the Nightrun or the Fit Mag race but I think, as someone pointed out, the people entering these are entry level joggers/fun runners but a fair number of them in the next few years will look to progress and they'll do this either by joining a local club or becoming part of an online community like here.

This will mean they will become aware of where to look for the club events and they'll be actively looking at racing (albeit against themsleves) more often, so price and quality will be a factor. At the minute it isn't - the t-shirt and feel good factors are the main factors.

The clubs and the club runs should be looking at ways to tap into this and be ready when the fun runners look to the next level.

I've been a "runner" for about 2 years - at first it would be the big mass runs that was appealing, as i could hide as such and find my own feet. Now its a different game - i know where to look for races, value the price of entry, don't want/need any more t-shirts.

I've also needed organise a local 5km and its been very successful. The big factors for us was a good quality route, accurate timing and attracting club runners to balance the fun run element. In the second year we added prize fund to attract some "elite" level runners, not just for their entry but also to hope they would bring their other club runners with them. And of course we had tea, buns, cakes etc etc to beat the band afterwards!

hardCopy

I don't really have a problem with mass participation events being run and given lots of attention.

Most of the people these races are targeting will never hit an A standard but at least they're out running. That may not directly benefit the elite end of the sport or increase competition but there is a massive public health benefit to having thousands of people out running every day.

Goodie bags, t-shirts and celebrity warm-up instructors will never be a priority at local club races but these things get people out the door who may never have owned a pair of running shoes before.

robinph

hardCopy wrote: »

I don't really have a problem with mass participation events being run and given lots of attention.

Most of the people these races are targeting will never hit an A standard but at least they're out running. That may not directly benefit the elite end of the sport or increase competition but there is a massive public health benefit to having thousands of people out running every day.

Goodie bags, t-shirts and celebrity warm-up instructors will never be a priority at local club races but these things get people out the door who may never have owned a pair of running shoes before.

600 people running a mass participation race does directly benefit the elite end, the guy who wins it can then get a better pay day than if he turned up to a small club run event and then then give him a pair of socks an a bit of cake.

tHE vAGGABOND

Kildare is a for profit race

I dont care what it was, but it had hundreds of people helping and every part of it made it a great race to run in IMHO...

Where I think of "for profit" races, I think of some races which dont have a bag drop, a pain to get your number and limited stuff at the end etc etc

Regarding the small number of people winning all the races, what do you do, ban good runners from taking part? Make it so only people from Lucan and surrounding areas can take part in the Lucan 5k? If someone is good, they have worked hard to get that good, and stay that good, why not let them run and reap some small rewards for that?

On the flip side, Im running to reach my own goals and happily in the middle of the field, as the person who is last in the race is running for their own goals - we dont give a sh1te who wins, bar "oh, so and so won again"

Many events at the same time is a problem, but I think we are in a boom, and what we will see is the market forces in effect, in that the good events will do better and better, and the lesser events will die. Think about the Dublin Bay 10k last week, there were about a thousand people running between the 5k and the 10k - and not a single mention of it here, anywhere in any form. It was not the most amazing organised race ever, but I enjoyed it and ran a good PB, so I dont care - so there is plenty of scope for races for many levels of people, not just good club runners doing 10k under 40 mins...

ultraman1

average_runner wrote: »

I think a Club summer league is the way to go. Add le Cheile, Tallaght, Lucan races into a league.

there is already the north kildare 5k league,,,le cheile 5k,donadea 5k,cocos 5k,and celbridge 5k...