A long time runner and follower of the blog sent on the following message about the ever increasing cost of road races...
It was with interest I read your comments in your recent post on the ever-increasing cost of races. It was something I was going to contact you about some time ago, especially when I saw the prices of two new races that took place recently.
One was a half-marathon which states a fee of €55, click on that it’s €58.58 and then if you have to add the levy it comes to over €60. The other, a 10-miler (a ‘must do’ event, according to the organisers!) had an entry of €47 which amounts to €50.06, plus the levy.
As one of the comments on your site states, if you turned up on the day with €50/60 in your hand, you might think twice about it but online nowadays makes it all so painless. Also, no doubt, a lot of the new people to running think these prices are the norm and have no knowledge of what it was like in the past.
I recently came across a copy of the Irish Runner from September 2000. It may be 25 years ago but its interesting see how prices compare. Virtually for all the races advertised, the entry fee was five Irish pounds. These include the BLE National Half-Marathon at Rathkeale, along with such high-profile races of the time like the Rathfarnham 5km and Tinryland four-miler. There was a T-shirt for all entrants in the half-marathon and a thermos flask (!) for the first 1,000 at Rathfarnham – all for that fee.
There is an Irish Inflation Calculator (hargaden.com) which compares prices from any year in the past to today. According to it, five pounds in 2000 would be in region of €11 today (the figure it gives is €10.49). Therefore, going on that, I feel that the entry fee for any race in the 5km/10km region should be, at the most, in the range of €12-€15, a ten-miler €15-€20 and a half-marathon around €20.
Athletics Ireland (along with Eventmaster) don’t seem to care, as long as they’re making money. Charging €50 for the National Half-Marathon at Tullamore a couple of weeks ago is just one example.
It’s not that local races are short of money – look at the Facebook page of any event in the weeks leading up to it and you see a list of different sponsors being announced on a daily basis.
Another thing nowadays is that some races announce no entries on the day/night. Obviously, you have to have this for the major events but for a small local race what’s the problem in accepting a certain number on the night. With chip timing it’s a lot less easier than back in the day when a lot more people were required for duties such as recording and timing manually.
