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Brighton half marathon
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Regarding the Brighton half marathon, about which a great deal has already been said, and all the other races mentioned in correspondence which were incorrectly laid out on race day, I was sold a half marathon i.e. 13.1 miles for my £25+ fee. What I got was a race not of this merchandisable quality, so, technically, I suppose I and the other 10,000 or so runners who took part are entitled to ask for a refund. I don't suppose race organisers will want to hear this, but it would be an incentive to get the details right.
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Comments
Wetter beat me to the cheeky response!
The serious response, is that I did a race once where they screwed up by not having a marshall in a key position. It meant that only 1st place and myself out of the top 15 did the full route.
Therefore, their races were screwed as they hadn't done a full 10k, and mine and the winner's races were screwed a bit as we suddenly didn't have the competition to push on in the last 2k.
To the race's credit they offered everyone affected a free entry for the next year's race.
That's probably optimistic for all 1000 people though, the race would go bankrupt...might be worth a cheeky little letter if you're a tightwad though.
I have to agree wholeheartedly on one of your points; there are now a large number of commercial races that are just getting too many of the basics wrong.
It seems every week a race is the wrong distance, starts late, runs out of water, has a nightmare congested start, has baggage problems.
Then you look at the organisers and it is very rarely a running club.
There is one race in particular that is every year an utter disaster according to the forums and RW sings it's praises ......... it has a lot of advertising on the RW website though????
Piers
However it gets thousands of entries every year as it is so heavily advertised.
I look back on Brighton now, maybe as something of a wake up call, that things can go wrong, but knowing i gave it all my best, that my bad cold didnt defeat me, that i achieved a new PB, and my folks were there to support me. I wear the t-shirt with happiness. It may say 'half marathon' on it, and i still say it was 13.5 miles and not 13.42 what they are saying it was, but it was still a heck of a day for me. I was only 24 minutes behind the leader as well. That gave me a buzz.
I will be back next year. Paying for it i dont care. Its an experience i wouldnt miss.
Just over a year ago I took part in the Run to the Beat half marathon - very expensive, again just a useless medal which gets shoved in a drawer, and inadequate marshalling. Of course, no surprise, it was organised by a "non-running club" organisation.
On the other hand, the Oxford Town and Gown, which I have taken part in almost every year for the last 25 years, is superbly organised with a field of up to 4000 runners, and this, too, is outsourced.( T-shirt included in the entry fee) However, the race director on the day is a luminary of a local running club with many years of experience. (Many of the marshals are volunteers from other running clubs in the county) I sometimes get the impression that this valuable resource is overlooked because the organisers feel they know as much as they need to. A perfect example of this was last year's Oxford half marathon, which had ruffled the feathers of many of the local clubs, the county AA, and some of the participants.This year, after mending bridges (if that is the phrase) and listening to local advice, we are hoping for an improved event.