Went online to book for another Brighton Marathon this morning. Seems the cost of entry has shot up to £55. Seems they want to save on postage(I know there are other valid reasons too) and get us to all collect our own packs this year. They now say they want to charge people for spectationg at the finish. You have to go through pages of stuff when entering about how many t-shirts do you want etc(fine if they have them to sell but does it need to be in the entry process?)Then they want to put on a charge(invisible until the end of the process) of £2.50 for admin. £57.50 for a marathon? The £2.50 was the straw that broke the camel's back. Seems that they are trying to bleed every penny from the runners now. Not for me in 2013
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It's a shame that it's gone that way.
I guess they've seen that they've got a sell-out event and will try and push it as far as they can.
Who actually gets the money?
... but it's all for Charidee
I reckon it will the fat cats who run it who will be raking in the profits.
Officially there will be no profits but Tim Hutchins will be paying himself a huge bonus no doubt.
I'll give both a miss, thanks!
Might think about an autumn mara, though.
Marathon des Alpes-Maritimes. Nice to Cannes, 4th November. Currently €55 to enter (it goes up the nearer the date you enter). No admin fee though
Whether you should do a mara this Sunday I leave to you to decide!
Isle of wight marathon sounds interesting too. Pity it's not off road though.
Charging people to spectate at the finish line? WTF?! How would they even enforce that rule?
I ran Brighton this year and it was a pleasant, well-organised event. But if I was paying nearly £60 for my entry, I would be expecting a lot more than they provided this year. Complimentary massages at the end of the race, a technical t-shirt for all finishers and A LOT more support on the Road to Hell. In fact, I'd rather the course didn't go past a sewage treatment works at all thanks. Oh, and I'd like my mum to be able to watch me finish the race without having to pay for the privilege of standing on a public street!
I don't mind paying a bit more for a race if it is good value; either venue being somewhere I couldn't normally run (Longleat or Silverstone) or otherwise unique experience (Medoc) and super-slick organisation, but it's hard to see where the extra money goes with some of the bigger UK races (apart from into the pockets of the organisers)
I think I'm with Wilkie, vive la France!
These events aren't cheap to put on and expectations are higher nowadays.
Chip timing. Technical tees. Goodie bags. Video screens etc etc.
London marathon is a steal. You could make money saving all of the drinks around the course !
I filled in the Brighton form.Got to the end and thought £55? - no thanks.
Entered London ballot. If I don't get in I might look at one of the other spring marathons, but reading the reports from recent ones...Hull, Milton Keanes, Manchester, Stratford.... they all seem to have had problems this year.
I stand corrected.