Forums >General Running>What is your price limit for a 5k (day of registration)
Fight The Future
Tewnty-five bucks for a 5K....Pppphhhhttttt!!!! I'd rather run with a local group every week, and afterwards have pint for $2.00 and a plate of paste and salad for $5.00 afterwards.
I used to eat paste. But that was back in kindergarden...
not bad for mile 25
I am really thankful for our local track club, who put on about one race every month, including a one mile ($10), a couple of 5Ks ($15) and 10Ks ($20), a 10M, and the half/full marathon ($60/$80). No charities, no gimmicks, and all are chip timed.
I don't travel more than same-day driving distance for a race unless someone else is picking up the tab. If I'm vacationing or travelling for work anyway and can get a run in someplace interesting, I'm all for it - 5km at the Meadows in Edinborough on our trip to Scotland was a highlight of the trip for me. It was a way to race somewhere new without the stress of the trip being for a race.
On reasonable though, I'm considering going back to visit my parents to coincide with a cheap marathon - the KV Challenge Marathon - it goes over the terrain I trained on when I first started running, might be a lot of fun. I really feel odd paying more than $50 to run a race, especially as I generally dislike larger races - more than a couple hundred people and I start getting annoyed at things. Fewer compete-ers and more completers the bigger the race, it seems. Now I just need to find small races in my new city.
Online registration: http://www.atlanticchip.ca
Registration Fee(s): $45 until September 1. $60 per person for all events afterwards.
E-mail marathoncanada@live.com if you would like a registration form sent to you.
You can also register in person at KenVal Rehab and Alex Coffin's Fitness Sh
Thanks for all the answers, glad to know I'm not as much as a cheapskate as I thought. =)
I don't pay over $25 for a 5K but its always me and my son running. I wish more events offer a no shirt option at a lower fee. I also refuse to use sites such as active.com to register because of "convenience" and/or "processing" fees but thats a different soap box.
I completely agree with you. However, I'm the RD to a local winter race (this year was the first time, but it was a massive success so it looks like it will continue), and the runners seem to have a different idea. There were paper applications everywhere including a well marked PDF download from the timing company's (Pretzel City Sports) site. The timing company also offered online registration for a $3 fee (to cover CC fees and his site maint). I was quite surprised at the percentage, easily more than half, of people that chose to pay the three dollars rather than mail in the application.
Because I posed the question I should probably mention that my 5k was a $20 prereg or $25 race day run. Included a long sleeve shirt, indoor (it was Jan) registration, waiting, and bathrooms, 10 year age groups, the basic stuff.
Someone earlier said they didn't agree with the race day price penalty. I believe you have to have it just so you have an idea of how many bagels bibs and bottle of water to bring race morning. If there is no savings to preregister I believe a great many people will not and you will not know if you should plan for 50 people or 350 people. My registration surged (massively) the week before the price increased. Without seeing the numbers of preregistrants we had I would have planned for about 100 (it was a first year race on a bitterly cold day and we had snow the night before). We had 275 people on race day.....
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.
Just because the numbers were eye opening I thought I would share the numbers from my race for what it costs to put on a race. This was a fund raiser charity race. We had 300 preregister, 23 more people walk up race day (it was a horrible cold (14 degrees IIRC) day with about 2 inches of snow on the ground) and 275 finishers.
10/15/2012 $34.99 Personal Visa - 6113 Road Id Goodie Bags and Safety pins - Runner Bibs supplied free11/6/2012 $9.00 Cash Shurfine Book of 20 stamps12/24/2012 $70.00 Check #3310 Jessica Bruno race artwork and logo1/11/2013 $40.99 Personal Visa - 6113 Road Id 200 more goodie bags and more safetypins1/12/2013 $53.56 Personal Visa - 6113 Ribbons Galore Fun Run Ribbons1/12/2013 $185.90 PERsonal Visa - 6113 Crown Award medals and trophies 1/21/2013 $12.99 Personal Visa - 6113 Amazon.com red course cones1/18/2013 $9.10 Target Visa - 0612 Target Post Race Food - Cookies1/17/2013 $29.46 Checking acnt debit card Bj's wholesale club Post race food - pb, nutella, twizzlers1/22/2013 $14.90 Check Hornings Post Race food - candy1/24/2013 $6.92 Lowes Card - 0948 Lowes Race signage1/26/2013 $173.87 Personal Visa - 6113 Shurfine Market Post race food - 18 doz bagels and 4 case banannas1/25/2013 $15.34 Checking acnt debit card Giant Chocolate bars and flour to mark course $500.00 Check Pretzel City Sports Timing Company Total $1,157.02 (not including shirts)
Shirts were about $8.50 a piece and registration was $20 or $25 depending on when you registered. So, money from registration to the race was either $11.50 or $16.50. One of the biggest surprises was how expensive awards are. That medal you win and toss in a drawer....they cost a lot when you buy them for an entire race. We did 10 year age group, top 3, male and female. I shopped around hard and the best price I could get to was almost $200.
Of note, I did not have to pay for the location, permits, or portojohn rentals and the water and a bunch of other food was donated. We did make a donation to the awesome fire police that came out to direct traffic for free!
Concerning the above post, I always figured it would cost about 1,000 to 1,500 bucks to put on the average 5K timed race with shirts and awards. Your experience falls in the estimates of what I was expecting... (An Idea I see many people do: Arrange with to Panera Bread to get the bagels for Free). I see many races that have the free Panera bagels out there. Allllmost as tasty as donuts post race, but healthier. :-)
The Plan '15 → /// "Run Hard, Live Easy." ∞
I've never been an RD but I'm going to guess that (particularly in many major metro areas), those items are huge expenses and really push up the cost. Those races might also call for police (who do expect to be paid), ambulance on stand-by, and event insurance for RDs concerned about such things. You don't have to be RnR or Komen to need/want those things for your race. But, at the end of the day, people shouldn't pay more for a race than what they're comfortable paying.
My blog is JT Running DC. It's awesome. Guide to Washington DC Area Running Routes. Guide to the New York City Marathon. Guide to the Boston Marathon. Guide to Running Gear. Guide to Running Clothes.
any race under HM day of race: $40 & must be an attractive one to me; prereg? $30 also looking for the race with the best value/scheduling for me.
Thanks for all the answers, glad to know I'm not as much as a cheapskate as I thought. =) I completely agree with you. However, I'm the RD to a local winter race (this year was the first time, but it was a massive success so it looks like it will continue), and the runners seem to have a different idea. There were paper applications everywhere including a well marked PDF download from the timing company's (Pretzel City Sports) site. The timing company also offered online registration for a $3 fee (to cover CC fees and his site maint). I was quite surprised at the percentage, easily more than half, of people that chose to pay the three dollars rather than mail in the application. ... Someone earlier said they didn't agree with the race day price penalty. I believe you have to have it just so you have an idea of how many bagels bibs and bottle of water to bring race morning. If there is no savings to preregister I believe a great many people will not and you will not know if you should plan for 50 people or 350 people. ...
Someone earlier said they didn't agree with the race day price penalty. I believe you have to have it just so you have an idea of how many bagels bibs and bottle of water to bring race morning. If there is no savings to preregister I believe a great many people will not and you will not know if you should plan for 50 people or 350 people. ...
One of the factors for online registration is convenience. Time outweighs the $3 fee - on both ends. I've put on a small mtn bike race on local trails to raise money for trail signage. The first couple years we did it with paper registrations. Only one or two people registered ahead of time, even with it costing $5 more on race day. First time we did online, we got a few more early registrations, then about 50%, then mostly pre-race. We absorbed the cost of online registration since it meant less work on race day and later, not having to read handwriting, esp. the emergency contact numbers. We didn't have to let them know that their registration was received - which meant paperwork on our end - find paper, finding envelope, finding stamp, and putting them all together then mailing.
Another factor is green. Online reduces paper. Our trails have a temporary permit on land designated for landfill use. the less that goes into the landfill, the longer it is until we lose trails at that end. We use compostable plates, cups, and "silver" ware for post-race food. They were donated by a company, and we compost at the farm at the other end of the trails.
Since our race was small and short (45-90 min), some people preferred race-day signup, so we didn't want to lose any customers. But some of our larger (as in fill up ahead of time) races will only accept online registrations. The one I'm thinking of is a winter ultra, and they need to keep track of people across 100 miles of Alaskan trail with about 5 checkpoints, iirc - and keep online info up to date. Having everybody registered online ahead of time insures they have accurate records and don't have to deal with reading handwriting.
Some of the other popular races (marathons) that are larger, but don't fill, increase registration costs as you get closer to race day with a hefty race day increase in price to encourage pre-race registration. I think the day-of registration is still under $100.
But most of the races that would probably charge a lot for race-day entry fill beforehand, so it's not an issue.
Someone earlier said they didn't agree with the race day price penalty. I believe you have to have it just so you have an idea of how many bagels bibs and bottle of water to bring race morning. If there is no savings to preregister I believe a great many people will not and you will not know if you should plan for 50 people or 350 people.
That was me and I stand by what I posted.
I'm not an RD but have volunteered my time for good deal of race committee's. Even if it's an inaugural race you have a fairly decent idea of what the turn out will be. You have past history to go by and what other local races draw. Unless your race is drastically different than anything else around I think you can guess 250, 350, 450...
We did quite fine in planning for bagels in the days before online sign up when it was all mail in or day of registration. I'll bet nearly 50% or better showed up day of race with their race application in hand already filled out.
Jumping from $25 to $30 the day of the race does not help in planning how many bagels and bottles of water to have.
That was me and I stand by what I posted. I'm not an RD but have volunteered my time for good deal of race committee's. Even if it's an inaugural race you have a fairly decent idea of what the turn out will be. You have past history to go by and what other local races draw. Unless your race is drastically different than anything else around I think you can guess 250, 350, 450... We did quite fine in planning for bagels in the days before online sign up when it was all mail in or day of registration. I'll bet nearly 50% or better showed up day of race with their race application in hand already filled out. Jumping from $25 to $30 the day of the race does not help in planning how many bagels and bottles of water to have.
Tone doesn't come across on a message board, so please don't take my disagreeing with you as anything other than friendly conversation. That said, I disagree. You said "Even if it's an inaugural race you have a fairly decent idea of what the turn out will be." which isn't true. Myself and the timing company guy (they time something like 400 events every year IIRC) both expected around 100 people on a good day through the planning process.....we had 300 preregister. Registrations went through the roof right before the prereg closed and then greatly tapered off right after. If you accept that you can be surprised at interest in your race until you have registrations the question of whether a price penalty is necessary hinges on if people will preregister if there is no financial incentive to do so. Will a person bother to mail in an application or pay a $3 online fee if there is no downside to just walking up race day. Having no race day price increase seems to be a negative incentive to actually preregister because preregistering requires extra work (complete and mail app) or extra money (online fee).
From my experience as a only one time RD, and runner of a lot of races: I, despite my best efforts, drastically underestimated how many people would show up. Preregistrations, which I do not believe would have happened without a price increase, gave me the indication that I should plan for 300 to 350 instead of a hundred. Without that information race day would have been a disaster. Not just food and water but bibs, pins, space we used, parking, course marshals....all those thing are dependent on turnout.
Anyway, just want to reiterate, I'm just going for friendly conversation, not trying to be critical. Either you or I aren't completely correct but the answer is probably somewhere in the middle.
Nope, were good...I know sometimes my message comes across more harsh than intended...I'm that way in person too.
Again...Why penalize? You want the numbers. I understand the need for planning.
Rather than penalize the guy who shows up race day, reward those who register early. In one of our races you get a pair of gloves for registering early. (Gloves are cheap...something like $.50 a pair) We get about 50% of the overall field.
Here's my beef...I can register online the day before for $25 or suddenly it becomes $30 race morning...wtf?? I'm not against a price increase say 2 weeks out. That will help with planning. It's the overnight jump that burns me.
I think we all can come up with examples of under estimating turn out. I can give one myself but we pulled thru it and then doubled the numbers again the very next year despite the first year being a complete disaster. Ran out of bibs...we were using the oversize diaper pin and race chute as part of the timing and the tear off portion is how you keep track of the finishing order. We also dealt with some of the other things you mentioned. A cool head can prevail.
You want the numbers. Why would you discourage people? Looking back thru this thread, $30 seems to be the puke point.
I'm just one guy but if I don't go to your race you just gave up $50 because my DD didn't come either. That just paid for your Road ID goodie bag expense. How many more of me are out there?
We want you at our races, we scrimp and scrape for every donation we can get. If someone donates $100 we take that as a pretty big deal...but in so many races around here the RD tells the runners...meh, take it or leave it...if you want to run today it'll coast you an extra $5.
In your example of underestimating you still had pre-registration (we didn't) and that clued you in. How many people showed up to register race day? Would that number have upset your applecart? I doubt it. We constantly see somewhere between 10 and 15% race day morning.
Apparently we agree and I misunderstood. We went from $20 to $25 two weeks out and it was $25 race morning. I completely agree $25 Friday night and $30 Saturday morning is pointless.
Good stuff in the rest of your post too, I would write more but time to pack for camping.
I'm paying $30 for the Bowerman AC 5K, but that's because it's for a good cause, it comes with a nice (Nike DriFit) shirt, and is in a sort of unique (to me) location (the Nike campus). I wouldn't pay that much otherwise. Where I am, 5Ks are usually about $15-20. $25 is pretty much the upper limit of what I would pay, unless there's something interesting about it that would warrant the higher fee.
I also absolutely won't pay more than $20 for an out-and-back 5K, unless I just absolutely have to race that weekend.
Current PRs:
5K: 27:06 (11/10/12) | 5M: 44:03 (6/1/13) | 10K: 1:00:48 (7/4/12)
15K: 1:27:53 (3/17/13) | 10M: 1:30:25 (4/13/13) | HM: 1:59:55 (4/28/13)
Next race: Ashland 4th of July 10K
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Apparently we agree and I misunderstood. We went from $20 to $25 two weeks out and it was $25 race morning. I completely agree $25 Friday night and $30 Saturday morning is pointless. Good stuff in the rest of your post too, I would write more but time to pack for camping.
I have never been a RD but I volunteer a lot. At all but the most low-key race, I think race day registration is a huge PIA and it makes perfect sense to me that RDs would want to discourage it.