Ryan Hall in the New Yorker

[Chad]

Anyone that gets the chance should check out the article on Ryan Hall in this week's New Yorker.  In addition to being an insightful profile of Hall, the article provides the most candid assessment of the state of running in this country that I have read in a long time.  For example, the writer talks about how the demographics of running are basically the same demographics as golf: The average participant in the ING New York City Marathon has an annual household income of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars.  He talks about how the steep entry fees for "back of the pack" runners finance the appearance fees for the front runners. That is, running may be the only sport where most of the participants are paying to get beat.  Not to mention we are getting much slower.  In 1982, the 100th finisher at New York ran 2:29.  Last year, 2:39.

It's a worthy read. I can't find it online except a little excerpt and its worth reading the whole article.

[Adam R Wende]

Thanks for posting this. You did get my interest perked. If you have a copy I'd be interested in borrowing it for a day... In response to the brief piece of info., I'm glad that there are many more participants in the races but it is sad that this hasn't improved the field as a whole. You would think with a higher numbers the population average should shake out more faster runners, not less... However, one thing I was curious about was if it is the fact that there are now more marathons to choose from? Is it just that the 100 sub-2:30 marathoners are spread more evenly across 100 marathons instead of 50 marathons?

[Chad]

Adam--you make a good point about the number of top runners being spread out across more races. That probably does make a difference.  Still, it is hard to dispute that far fewer people run marathons for the competitive element than they did in the 1970's. This does have big upsides: people who run marathons are no longer considered wackos. A lot of people are more fit and more aware of their bodies than they were a generation ago.  Still, there is a lot more to the sport than finishing a marathon and the high attrition rate is discouraging.  In my case, I think it took seven or eight years of running and seven or eight marathons before I felt like I finally understood how training actually works (still a work in progress, of course).

[Sasha Pachev]

Not sure how much water the argument "the masses pay for the elites" hold. If it did hold any, Chad, who will finish in about top 0.4% of the field in most marathons would see some serious money at the end of a race frequently.

Here is what I know about appearance fees from the media info and occasional discussions with top athletes. It seems that a man has to be at least a sub-2:10 marathoner to see any to begin with. An appearance fee is rarely more than what the athlete's best time would win in that race. So we are talking maybe $200K for somebody like Haile or Paula, and maybe $50K for Ryan Hall. Most race directors will ever offer a penny more than what they have to, and they will try to make every penny of that fee count. Most elite athletes never even sniff a smell of an appearance fee.

Why do race directors offer appearance fees? Suppose you are a sub-2:10 guy, and you support yourself, your immediate, and extended family, as well as the rest of your home village  with your legs. They count on you to help them get out of poverty. The prize structure of a Boston-size marathon is such that if you have a slightly off day you come home with very little money. Whereas if you run 5 smaller marathons, it is more sure money, even on a bad day. You will run 5 smaller marathons. Unless  a Boston-like marathon offers some form of an insurance against a bad day. The big marathon, make no mistake about it, will require you in the contract that you run no marathons within 3 months of their event.

You have an American businessman trying to get something out of an African runner. Which one of them do you think is likely to get the short end of the stick?

The cost of putting on a race is actually pretty high. Especially in a city like New York where you have to close numerous roads, have a lot of police out, pay all kinds of weird fees and expenses. The entry fees are almost entirely used to cover those costs. The prize purse usually comes from the sponsor money.

[Michelle Lowry]

The author takes evidence from the NY marathon to comment on the state of US marathoning, which he should not do.  Using the evidence that the average income of a marathoner at the NY marathon is $130K doesn't tell us much about US marathoning as a whole.  I doubt the average income of St. George is much more than half of $130K.  First of all, NY is a very expensive city, so salaries are higher there, so $130K in NY is not nearly as impressive or "wealthy" as $130K in Ames IA or Provo, UT.  Secondly, using averages for salary is misleading.  Any statistician would day, "Yeah, but what's the median?"  Averages are skewed from the millionaires in the group, so quoting the median income would have been more revealing and useful.  Granted, its the New Yorker magazine, so I understand them using that marathon, but you can't extrapolate from NYC to the rest of the US, NYC is its own strange animal to the rest of us living in a suburban or rural US existence.

[Chad]

You guys make good points, but miss the larger points.  Sasha--I don't think there can be much dispute that the entry fees that most runners pay do help subsidize appearance fees and prize money.  Even if some of that money comes from sponsors, does it make a difference?  The point is you can't have a race and attract top runners without relying on a lot of money from the pack runners.  The fact that the prize money is all out of proportion to the race's income only proves that running pays just enough to bring in the fastest runners that year. Most years, those runners are African.

Michelle, I think you're probably right about NY being a flawed example for demographics, but it is an interesting illustration of the fact that marathon racing in the United States is, by and large, populated by well-educated, middle-class/upper middle class people. It's a luxury, in other words. No one on the blog (that I know) is running to eat.  Not so for some runners in other parts of the world. 

[Jon Allen]

Something I read today:
In 1980, the average finish time for a male marathoner was 3:32, according to Running USA*. Today, it's more than 4:20.

[Jeff Linger]

What was the average number of people who participated in (finished) a marathon in 1980 versus today?

[Sean Sundwall]

I haven't read it yet but here's the link:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/11/080811fa_fact_hessler?currentPage=all

[Scott Zincone]

Something I read today:
In 1980, the average finish time for a male marathoner was 3:32, according to Running USA*. Today, it's more than 4:20.

I think it was 2005 when I ran in my 1st "big race", by this I mean number of entrants, in about 17 years.  It was the 8k of the Richmond Marathon.  I could not believe the "thousands" of people who planned on walking (in the Marathon).  When I had run this race as a teenager I did not remember so many walkers.  I wonder if this is a factor in the average finishing time for marathoners today.

[Jon Allen]

Scott- it absolutely is.  In the 1960's-1980's, everything I read says most marathoners were runners/joggers.  Everyone was competing for a good time.  It wasn't until the 1990's that the whole "I just want to finish a marathon, no matter what my time" caught on, as evidenced by the publicity given to Oprah, P. Diddy, etc with their marathon finishes.  I'm happy to see more people get the exercise and participate, but it is true that the average time has increased substantially.  That's one reason hyponatremia has only recently become a concern- there were almost no 6-hour marathon runners 20 years ago.