I'm amazed that it seems like the race production business is among the only businesses where the RD doesn't legally have to give refunds if they F up. And no I'm not talking about some bad weather event (IM Tahoe for example), but lazy stuff like this, if those racers don't get full refund, that's pretty shameful.

Note: The RD did say he would honor the entry for another race, but did not say anything regarding full refund.



"All runners who are registered for the 2014 Boulder Marathon, Half Marathon & 5 Mile event on October 5th will be able to use their paid entry fee for either the 2015 Boulder Spring Half Marathon, or next fall's Boulder Marathon event," he wrote.
Registrants were understanding when the race was called off in 2013. This time around, many are clamoring for full refunds.
"I already lost over $200," Jacek Giecold wrote on the event page. "I want my money back and for sure I am done with this circus."
"Refund. End of story," added Andrea Russo. "Not being able to run a race that one has trained for goes with the territory. Happens all the time. But this is not normal.
"Two weeks out with no discernible unexpected event to make the run undoable and then to cancel is bad business and reeks of fraud."
Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett said his office has not yet been contacted, but that this is "the type of thing that law enforcement would investigate, depending on the facts."
Cmdr. Tom Trujillo said Saturday night that Boulder police had also not received any complaints.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Well sometimes it is impossible as the race has real expenses and rain or shine on race day, the money has been spent.

But in cases like this, where negligence is at play. I completely agree.

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The Home of Advanced Running
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Supposedly the DA may be getting involved with it, since it sounds more like fraud than just having problems.

As I said if bad weather etc happens, sure that's fine, but it's amazing to me the cases like this, where you have to go through all kinds of channels just to get your money back. There damn well better be a act of god in situations where you have to cancel a race, or an racer absolutely deserves their money back, regardless if the RD has already sunken cost into said event.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

He's already trying to make that claim. The email he sent out said that they couldn't do it because of the flooding last year, which is a joke. Everything in the Boulder area is more or less fine. From what I have read on a couple articles here is that people have ran the course in the last week and it is completely fine.

In this case this guy is an lazy guy it sounds like and is using the 2013 flood to justify. He also is atleast giving out entry into other events to those in the race already. But regardless, this is what drives me crazy. How is this guy allowed to take money from 1200 people if he hadn't even gotten the permits for the race. Like I said, it's amazing to me that race production seems to be one of the very few industries that you can say "oh you mean you paid me for a service and i'm not going to give you that service, that's your fault man, go deal with it".

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Brooks,

Race/Event direction in the endurance sports events business has exploded in the past 5 years. Like any business, there is a range of talent and expertise.

I'll not comment on this particular situation as I know none of the details.

However, I will relate to you a story that just happened, with one of the absolute best triathlon race management companies in North America this week that endangered the running of their premier event of the year!

All permits and documents where signed and in place. Yet, on Tuesday (for an event this past Sunday), the event received notification - the request for a full closure of about 200m of road had been denied. I'll not go into full details, but this 200m road closure was critical to the race coming off. There was this domino and knock-on effect that the Police, Fire and Ambulance, would only get involved in their responsibilities at this particular location on the bike course, if a full road closure was in place. Turns out a lower ranking city official had made a mistake. It took two full days of work, in the final week of prep before a major event, to turn that around.

Ounce that was sorted out on Friday a drive of another part of the bike course found 200m ripped up. Again - miss- communication between the municipality and the contractor. I am guessing the contractor had a hole in their schedule and figured, they would move up by a week or so the work they needed to do! Another full day of haggling, on the phone with the city and the contractor, to get the paving of the 200m section expedited and done for Sunday.

The life of an RD! This is why, for bigger events, these sorts of events are best handled by experienced event management professionals! The really good ones come up with solutions and survive. That was 3 full days of unexpected work, for key people in an event management company, when they were already maxed out in final preparation for a big event!

Everything was in place for race day and the event was a huge success!

And you wonder why sometimes, RD's, don't seem to fuss or worry about complaints about the flavour of the sports beverage! :)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Fleck,

Those are great background stories and are great source of OUTSTANDING RD work, and all but what I don't get is this. Ok let's say in your example, they didn't get it fixed. You know what the response would be: " SORRY, but you racers are shit out of luck, maybe we give you a race entry into another race, maybe we don't.....we don't have to do anything, and you'll deal with whatever we decide".
ETA: I guess for the smart/good RD, they would fix the problems or else probably not have a race anymore. So yeah, I guess more times than not, a good RD is going to take care of the racers. I guess it's just this reasoning of "well we've sunk all the costs already, even though it was our fuck up, your going to have to eat your expense....sorry".

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Knowing the RD in question this would not have been the case. John would have made it work, somehow, someway. I'd have no problem entering any sort of race that John and his crew run.

The problem is not all RD are created equally. And another problem is the piss poor RDs are a dime a dozen whereas the great RDs are few and far between :/ And the biggest problem is they seem to get away with it.

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

I've learned that in this industry, it's just organized chaos.

It's hilarious how participants show up, run their race, get a medal and complain about things that are so small and just 1 hour before the gun goes off I'm running around thinking, holy hell, the course is on fire, nothing is right, we're gonna be so screwed.

And then...voila, it happens and the participants never realize all the ass busting you did. But then you that 5% who will come tell you your course sucks and it was poorly marked and their favorite gel flavor was unavailable. :p

It's a blast though. Always fun when the gun goes off and everything goes smooth in the eyes of the participants.

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The Home of Advanced Running
Advanced Running Instagram Page
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And then...voila, it happens and the participants never realize all the ass busting you did.

Nor should they really need to know. Although it would be nice.

For the larger events the work that goes into them is extraordinary. The best way to describe it I ever heard was by Paula Newby-Fraser, who knows a thing or two about these sorts of events as both a participant, and behind the scenes at Ironman. Paula calls it, "The magic show" . . and she's right!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

The best offer I saw was rock and roll marathon in Denver is having a race in I think 2-3 weeks they are giving anyone how got screwed free entry into the race.