Published by the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey
On Sunday, April 16, 2017
OUT OF SHIRTS? CUT
THE FEE.
“Souvenir T-shirts to the first 500 runners,” the race
website states. How about, “T-shirts to
pre-registered runners only” or “Souvenir
shirts while they last”.
What those headlines don’t say is what happens after the
first 500 runners show up, or a runner registers on race day, or the shirts
just plain ran out. All of those things
happen, and they happen often.
It’s not easy to figure out how many shirts to order four
months before race day, and what sizes to order. Will we come up short or have too many
shirts? Better to be short than be stuck
with too many shirts.
So try to plan on just enough or not quite enough. From the race director’s point of view this
is a fine strategic plan.
From the runner’s point of view, well, it stinks. You show up on race day with your post entry
fee gripped in your hot little hand. You
hand the nice volunteer your entry application and your check or cash.
“Thank you very much,” says the person on the other side of
the table. “We’re out of shirts. Sorry. Have a
nice race.”
Wait just a minute.
You paid extra, probably another ten bucks for your race day entry and
now you walk away with a bib number but no souvenir T-shirt.
How does that make sense?
It wasn’t always this way.
Back when I first became involved in the other side of racing, the
management side, our policy was to cut the fee as soon as the t-shirt people
told us we were out of shirts. Other
races did the same.
In fact I lead a small rebellion directed toward races that
did not cut the race day fee when they ran out of shirts.
But over time this practice has stopped and now no one,
neither the race organizers, nor the runners being fleeced have seen the irony
of this system.
Is it time to foment a new rebellion?
LAST WEEKEND RACES
Although it was not a USATF championship this past Sunday,
the Cherry Blossom 10K in Newark’s Branch Brook Park had a good turnout.
Women outnumbered the men with 625 women finishing the race
to 469 men. Stephen Mennitt of North
Brunswick won the race in 33:04.
Alexandra Niles, of Montclair won the women’s race in 37:12. An outstanding performance was turned in
again by Nora Cary, 62, of Morristown who finished the race in 43:43 for the
top age grade of 91.39 PLP %.
By far the biggest race of last weekend was the Unite Half
Marathon held at the Rutgers Campus in New Brunswick and Piscataway. Michael Dixon of Fanwood won the race in
1:14:16 and Kristen Prendergast of Annandale was the first woman in
1:23:13. Men outnumbered the women in
the half marathon 1,413 to 1,142.
On the other hand, the women had it all over the men in the
8K that was run along with the half marathon.
Women 596 – Men 337. Only a
scattering of Morris area runners turned out for the races, but Jason Schweizer
of Rockaway finished the 8K in 30:48 for fifth overall.
My apologies to Justin Scheid of Succasunna. Last week’s column noted that he finished
second in the Indian Trails 20K. I threw
an “e” onto the end of his name, thus changing Scheid’s gender in one stroke of
the hand. I am very sorry for the blunder.
BOSTON MARATHON TOMORROW
Many area runners are in Boston to run on Monday in the
oldest marathon on record. The Boston
Marathon was first held in 1897 and was actually shorter than today’s
standardized 26.2 miles. Many things
have changed over the years but one thing that has not changed is that one must
run a qualifying time in order to register in the race. All good wishes go out
to the runners.
National coverage of the race will be on NBC Sports Network
beginning at 8:30 a.m. The elite women
will start at 9:32 a.m. and the elite men and the first wave of faster runners
will start at 10:00 a.m.
##
A calendar of USATF sanctioned events can be found at www.usatfnj.org or at www.raceforum.com for running and tri and
biathlon events.
Contact Madeline Bost at madelinebost@verizon.net.
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