$ devine racing $

[allie]

On the other hand nobody is going to spend any money in south salt lake during the marathon weekend. It's a pure loss for them.

what about mad greek? or the wal-mart just off van winkle? those are tourist gold mines, imo.

[Paul Petersen]

I watched a documentary a while back about the guy who founded the New York Marathon. It mentioned that at first NYC did not charge the race, but eventually made the permitting very expensive. The NYC Marathon was barely just floating by, or in the red, well into the 1990s. Now it does okay, I think, but it is better-managed too (the founder was kind of a nut). I do believe that the title sponsor is a HUGE factor in whether a race is in the red or in the black, as they give tons of $$ to the race. ING for NY, La Salle for Chicago...even TOU has NordicTrack. Who is SLC's title sponsor? Exactly, nobody.

By the way, the documentary I referenced above is called, "Run for your Life." It's very interesting.

[Sasha Pachev]

You could probably say the same for some of the Chicago suburbs that the marathon runs through. And, I highly doubt the cities thought about the possible tax revenue years later when those early marathons got started. Somebody more familiar with the history of major marathons could possibly enlighten us.

[Dallen]

You could probably say the same for some of the Chicago suburbs that the marathon runs through. And, I highly doubt the cities thought about the possible tax revenue years later when those early marathons got started. Somebody more familiar with the history of major marathons could possibly enlighten us.

Actually, the entire Chicago course remains within the city limits. It's a big city.

I don't know that much major marathon history, but if you look around you will notice that essentially every major city has one. The good/big ones mostly started in the 70's and probably didn't become treu profit makers until the running boom of the last 8-10 years.

On side note. As far as I know, no city hosts more than one large quality marathon. The locals tend to pick a race and get behind it. That makes it tough for the others to succeed. Despite the recent emergence of a larger Salt Lake Marathon, I think the city's true marathon is Des News. If one of the other newcomers ever makes it to the next level, Des News will suffer.

[Jon Allen]

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=6130297  More news. 

Des News is big for the 10k, but I think the marathon is shrinking- last year had the fewest finishers in 10 years, with only 519 runners (down about 100 over the past 8 years).  Ogden has 1534, SLC has 1243, TOU has 1713, but the definite winner is St. George with 5000+.  In other words, a bunch of fairly small marathons, with one medium sized one.  Personally, I like the big selection- Ogden or SLC in the spring, TOU or St. George in the fall, plus a smatering of others like Des News, Utah Valley, Park City.  40,000 people in one marathon just sounds too big for me (and I have run Bolder Boulder 10k many times, which has 50,000 runners).

[allie]

i will always be a fan of Des News because a) it's brutal and i like to try and conquer it (never have), b) it's small. it's fun to run in super small, nobody-wants-to-run-it races sometimes, and c) it was my very first marathon...oh the nostalgia.
but, it is a hard race and utah has more marathon options now, which may be why it is shrinking.

i read that article on ksl today too. i am very concerned now about how this race is going to end up. people are saying the police have boycotted providing traffic control? well if that is true, this is going to be one dangerous and chaotic race. SLC marathon frenzy! angry citizens hitting runners with their cars because nobody is there to stop them! no medical help! and bounced checks at the finish line!

[Bonnie]

I think the bigger issue is that they can't have the race without police support - they won't get the license to run the race (which from what I read hasn't been applied for yet?).   I think SLC will have to cave in, since there are so many people who have already reserved hotels, etc. I don't think they will risk alienating these people regardless of how awful Devine racing is.  They have had bounced checks - or no checks - for years with ALL of their marathons. 

[Fredrick Teichert]

I may be a little hard on South Salt Lake because of the way they kept trying to annex our section of Salt Lake when I still lived in the city and because I had to deal with them when I ran our Little League program and the Booster's Club at Granite High. Even though one of my friends was the mayor this smacks of their typical "last minute land grabs"... still, my point is that a city benefits from a marathon in many ways: it attracts spectators (depending on their support for it) who all want to eat at Ambers or go to the Cineplex afterwards; it exposes citizens to running and may help them get involved in the sport; it gives citizens the opportunity to participate both as runners and volunteers; and it can foster good PR and business opportunities for government and local enterprises. Apparently SSL thinks the benefits to the community are not worth taxpayer money. That's what I worry about. If Holladay, Murray, the county, and Salt Lake City all did what SSL proposes,  you're up to $100,000 just for traffic control. Race directors aren't going to put on races if they can't make money and we (runners) won't have any races to run. Neither will the fine citizens of South Salt Lake.
BTW-- I was not much of a runner when I saw a couple of Kenyans scream past my Millcreek home one April morning seven years ago. But after that first Salt Lake Marathon, I decided I could be.

[James Moore]

I've been having multiple dreams about my race on Saturday. A recurrent theme has been having to dodge cars while racing! In one dream, the route was changed at the last moment to go through an office building. To begin with people were pushing the doors open to aid the runners behind them. Then someone slammed a door in my face. After that it was chaos. We had to leave the building through the lobby, but we had to walk to maintain proper decorum (the course description given to us at the start said so) then cross a busy street (which had the TRAX on it). The finish of that race ended up being pretty exciting...I got sixth I think, but I had a lead with about 800meters to go.

[Bonnie]

oh my goodness, you just made water come out of my nose!  I like the fact that in your dream a bunch of sweaty runners care a hoot about "proper decorum" -- I mean come on, you are talking about people that for the most part incorporate talk about their bathroom escapades like some people talk about their recent vacations.

[allie]

james - that may be one of the best race nightmares i have heard in awhile. and maybe not too far off...
ahhh, can't wait for saturday!

[James Moore]

I'm going to write about the entire dream on my blog I think.