Challenging long held ideas about racing

As a race director these days you have to be creative with new races. As was mentioned in an earlier post, everything under the sun has been done before.

This sort of creative thinking has led me to challenge some long-held ideas about foot races.

The first, and most baffling being the notion that every race has to give out shirts as part of the package deal. Why, oh why has this become a tradition? I realize that people want a commemorative something to show off that they completed an endurance event, something to mark the occasion. And, I get that sponsors want their logo to be seen around the city.

But the reality of the situation goes something like this: most regular runners participate in a lot of events, which results in lots of t-shirts in their running drawer (and, most, like me, can't even close the drawer because it is too jam packed). This results in a lot of those expensive and well thought out shirts either at the bottom of someone's storage unit, or at the Goodwill. This is especially true of smaller races who don't have a budget for tech shirts and have to settle for cotton short sleeved shirts.

The first year I put together Run Scared I did mugs, and people loved them. Why not mugs/hats/blankets/backpacks...These days you can put a logo on just about anything. So, why, oh why, do we still give out shirts at races?

Other suggestions? What would you like to have instead of a t-shirt?

The second tradition being questioned? Well, you will have to wait till the next blog posting about that (we need to iron out a few details before making the announcement).