I think they are getting out of control! I am having a harder and harder time justifying the ever-increasing race fees. If I was seeing incremental value for the money, that would be one thing; however, it seems to be just the same old thing but getting more and more expensive every year. Case in point, the Chilly HM (Burlington)… 2007: $45 2008: $50 2009: $65 (* all prices quoted are the early bird prices) That’s up 30% from last year and 44% from 2007… This race is now more expensive than the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront HM ($60), the Toronto Goodlife HM ($60), the Ottawa HM ($45), the Mississauga HM ($45), Grimsby HM ($45), Oakville HM ($50) and the Hamilton Road2Hope HM ($55)… in fact, in my brief scan I could not find a HM with an initial price point as high as the Chilly HM. I’d be really interested to hear why fees have increased so dramatically in 3 years? In fact, I've written a note to the RD and asked. I’ve run this race the last 3 years, and I would not self-identify as someone that is sensitive to price, but even I find this a bit exorbitant. To be honest, after this year, I very likely dropping this race from the calendar. I don't particularly like it (though the timing is good for the AtB race at the end of Mar).

I also find it hard to justify the expense, and have decided to do only a couple of the high ticket races a year, the remainder will be low cost local events, which have lots of free parking and entry fees in the $25-$50 range. Some don't have chip timing but if there are only 200 runners your gun time is good within 10 seconds, so who cares? Simon.