Road running races’ popularity on rise - Athletics news
There used to be a time when even limited entries for some of the renowned marathon races used to take months before they were all sold out. However, with the rising acumen of common people about the sport amid display of tremendous performances by traditionally
dominating athletes and the rewards attached to these races, running has started attracting the common populace towards them in abundance. Now, surprisingly, even the costliest of events are sold like hot cakes and are distributed among participants on a first-come-first
basis.
As the popularity of races among masses and communities started to increase, it was realised that there are not enough races for people to appear at. Perhaps, this was the reason that communities started organising marathons and other races at local levels
to extend chances for the indigenous people to display their potential for the game. It is because of this phenomenon that varying from 5km to 30km, today, we can observe dozens of small and big races simultaneously taking place around the globe.
Interestingly, in order to grant greater popularity to these local races, the organisers went on to assemble best fields for them and maintained the quality of arrangements that gradually earned them an IAAF certification. Moreover, the monetary reward attached
to these races also rose significantly that running them became a lucrative deal and in order to participate in them, many athletes dropped their names even from the global and continental athletics events.
Recently, Geoff Weber, a veteran runner, who is not only an experienced athlete but who also manages an athletic club, during an interview, hinted towards this fact and said, “Almost every community and festival, everybody has their own 5k, some of them
are competing against each other (for runners). I get a lot of people contacting me about how to start up a 5k asking, ‘Why do I need to know?’ I’ve gotten so many requests, I’ve got a template of frequently asked questions on starting a 5k.”
Weber, a dedicated athlete, who also strives for the promotion of running races, provides his advice to people who are interested in starting a race event in their communities. Guiding about the essential arrangements from athletes to contacting law enforcing
agencies, getting permissions from town committees, ordering shirts and other equipments to everything else, he provides all details to people for the purpose. The numbers of people or communities that contact him for his guidance are increasing with each
passing day.
Hinting about what he advices to people, Weber said, “I kind of tell them if you get 125 people – which is a normal amount of runners – you’ll come out with x amount of dollars. For some people, they think they’ll get more and then not end up doing it.”
However, he also plainly cautioned his readers that not every race makes money for their organisers.
Talking about the phenomenon, another veteran athlete, Bill Dennison, who runs his own company named Greater Cleveland XC Running and Promotions, also aired similar views to that of Weber. He said that he had been arranging and training people for races
for ages, and was of the view that it was not at all a difficult task to do. It seems that common people are pretty much pleased by what was said by Bill as today, every other person seems to organise a running event, if not for profit, then, of course for
fun.
Tags: