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The Beach to Beacon 10k is a great destination race, especially for a race of such a short distance. A world class field combined with a scenic (and fun) course in Southern Maine serve to provide a great experience for anybody wanting to vacation in the area.
The race is very popular, selling out last year in about 24 hours and this year in about 110 minutes despite allowing a field that is 9% larger than last year.
As great as this race is, though, I think that there are some definite areas for improvement.
Find a New Provider for Registration
The registration process has been atrocious the past 2 years. Now that online registration is mandatory and there is no longer a paper option, the race committee really needs to look into finding a new solution than the company that they currently are using. Their website basically grinds to a halt with a few hundred to a thousand people hitting it at one time, which in the grand scheme of things is not really all that much traffic and a merchant provider should easily be able to handle it.
Not only are their frequent timeouts, but the site would often just show you a blank white page rather than an error message. If you refresh the page, then you might get an error message or you might not. After processing my credit card, I got the white page and tried to submit my info again. I was told that duplicate information was submitted, so despite not getting a confirmation I assumed that I had gotten in. When the list of entrants was announced, however, my name was not there.
Incorrect error messages are even worse than no error messages.
The company that they are using is Forte Interactive. Not only are they not capable of handling the registration process accurately or with anything other than a frustrating user experience, but they also charge higher than average registration fees. With the local ties that the Beach to Beacon has to the local Maine community, I don’t understand why they continue to send their registration business to Florida for a 2nd year in a row after having had the same problems the previous year.
Change the Registration Time
Registration for the race is always on March 15th. While I personally see no reason for registration to be held 4½ months before the race when they know it is going to be at or near max capacity anyway, I understand that that is not going to change and have no problem with that.
However, there is no reason for registration to have begun at noon. In years past, registration began at 9:00 am. This year, with registration falling on a Sunday, the noon start to registration coincided with a popular local race’s starting time which seems rude to me. Given that registration filled in less than 2 hours, my guess is that very few people who ran in that race had an opportunity to try to register themselves.
Allow Cape Elizabeth Residents to Register Early
Residents of Cape Elizabeth, where the race is held, have to deal with their town shutting down for a day and a half for the race and have a month of runners training on some narrow and windy roads throughout July.
For people with a mailing and billing address in Cape Elizabeth, there should be an early registration option to allow them to compete in their home town race without having to deal with all of the frustrations created by the registration process.
Allow Streakers to Register Early
If somebody has run all of the Beach to Beacon races, they should have the opportunity to register early so that they can keep their streak alive. They supported the race year in and year out and every year the number of eligible folks will decrease.
They should also have the opportunity to register early.
Allow the Transfer of Registrations
I recognize that it can be a bit of an administrative hassle to transfer registrations, but for a popular race that sells out half a year in advance it should be allowed. The only real reason that I can think of for not allowing the transfer of registrations is so that come race day there won’t be a full-capacity crowd.
To relieve the administrative hassle, don’t allow any registration transfers after a week before the race. Because packets and bibs are printed ahead of time and are personalized, there may need to be more of a lead time so in allow them up until a month before or however long it takes for bibs to be printed.
To relieve the cost of updating the paperwork, charge a fee ($10 would be reasonable and is almost 30% of the registrations fee) and automate the process through the website so that all you need to do is run off a report to send it to the printers. You could also provide a no-charge method for turning a race number in which would allow people on a waiting list to register for full cost.
This not only would raise additional revenue, but would also allow people that did not get into the race an opportunity to replace those who can’t race because of injuries or other reasons.
Mark Shore Road at both ends throughout July
Runners frequently train on Shore Road in the month before the race, which can give them a huge edge over people experiencing the course for the first time on race day.
Unfortunately, Shore Road consists of non-existent shoulders on twisty, hilly, narrow road where traffic tends to go a bit faster than it should. It’s a beautiful and scenic road to run on during the race, when the road is closed to traffic, but it can be dangerous the rest of the year.
Given the number of people that do train there through July, it makes sense to post a sign for the drivers to ignore that says something along the lines of “Caution » Watch For Runners” so that there’s at least a chance that they might be aware that they’ll be sharing the road with up to a few dozen runners through that 2 mile stretch.
Packet Pickup Should Be Moved to Portland
I fully recognize that this will never happen.
I mention it anyways, because Cape Elizabeth is not designed to handle the amount of traffic that has to go through the town in the days before the race, which leads to gridlock and stressed out drivers trying to get to Cape Elizabeth from the surrounding area.
Parking at the high school is also in relatively short supply, especially during and after rush hour. Getting out of the high school and back onto Route 77 to get back into town is also very frustrating.
Portland is much better situated to handle the traffic and there are plenty of options for places that could be hired out to hold the expo and packet pick up. Even South Portland would be more convenient and provide less of an impact than Cape Elizabeth High School.
Extra Shuttle Locations outside of Cape Elizabeth
Right now, very few people other than press and race organizers can park at the finish line. There are shuttles from Cape Elizabeth High School and from a few empty fields that are relatively close to the starting line where people can park.
The problem is that there are too many cars for these locations, and the commuting situation is no better on race morning than it is in the 2 days leading up to the race. There should be at least a few shuttles provided from Portland and from South Portland to reduce the number of cars that need to get into Cape Elizabeth in the first place and help relieve some of the pressure of getting to the race on time and finding somewhere to put your vehicle.
Well Worth Running
The Beach to Beacon is well worth running. The race itself is very well run and there are a lot of amenities for the runners. If you can get into the race, then I highly recommend it.
The only real problems that I see are with registration and packet pickup, with their being room for improvement for race day parking.
Have you run the Beach to Beacon before? Do you see any other areas for improvement that I have missed?
Leave a comment below letting me know what you think.
Blaine -- Cacky said that the registration officials are looking into problem registrations like yours. Good luck! I was pretty PO’d by the registration. I was at Pineland, finished waxing my skis right at 12PM, went upstairs to the market and was online by 12:05 trying to get onto the the B2B site, with no luck. The computer just sat there. I went to Peak Performance to see if they had any information and they had a direct link to the registration, which took me to Active.com. But there was no registration but on the Active.com site. Was that the registration vendor? After failing to get on the B2B site, I went out for a ski figuring no way 6K people were all online. I finished skiing at 2:30, went back up to the Market, got online went to the B2B site, and saw that registration had closed.
It is without a doubt one of the best races in the Northeast. But it sure was miserable trying to register. You describe to the letter exactly what I experienced as I tried to register my daughter and son. She is in and he is not. It took me 53 minutes before I got through the process to get her in. There has got to be a better way.
Your other ideas have some merit. It will be interesting to see what they come up with for 2010. I know there are many disappointed people out there tonight.
They use Forte Interactive, a Florida based hosting company and ecommerce solution. Frankly, I’m not impressed. I can think of plenty of national companies that could easily handle 5 digits worth of people at once, and there are some Maine based solutions that at the very worst can’t be as bad as these folks have been the past 2 years.
I agree the registration process was horrible I cranked up two computors at noon exactly and was continaully waiting for connections. I got in three times to the point of writing in a name only to be put in limbo and kicked out.
I tried refreshing and this caused the system to kick me out again. After 50 minutes, I did finally get through to register but didn’t get a confirmation. I didn’t know if I was in or not.
I was actually upset enough that I considered giving up and never runing the race ever again. It should not be this nerve racking!
Finally I did accomplish registration and by 1:50 got my daughter registered. I knew there were going to be some upset people when at ten of two my daughter’s number was 5933……
I am so glad I got in but very unhappey with the process. I agree with all that you stated here Blaine. I say I got in but I actually haven’t checked to see if my name is on the list…I guess I should do that.
Blaine, I like your ideas! My thought are that they probably will have to start a lottery next year. My family and I will probably have to find a different race to run as a family. I’ve been running the race with my family since 2003. I also logged onto Active.com thinking they would have registration on that site seeing that they had the B2B info… But, there was no registration. I thought at noon that a magic button would appear, but it didn’t. That’s when I went to the B2B website that Active had given. They needed to find a company that could handle the high volume of traffic to the site, I tried several times to register myself and my children and made it far as submitting my credit card info, then to only have a white blank page appair. I waited and waited to see if it went through, waited for an email comfirmation, when I didn’t receive an e-mail, I re-registered again. I think people like yourself who encountered these problems should recieve an entry to next years race.
I’m not griping because I didn’t get in; I just want to point out constructively where the race can improve. For such a great race, it’s a shame that they should have the exact same problems for 2 years in a row, and as long as I was going to offer suggestions for registration I thought that I should offer some other suggestions at the same time.
In fact, I’ve communicated most of these suggestions in the past to the folks I know on the race committee, but I doubt that anything will come of them.
Those are all great ideas, Blaine.
I notice you didn’t recommend a lottery and, truth be told, I’d rather there not be a lottery. But I suspect next year they’ll introduce one. A two-hour window is just too short and unfair to anyone who had something else to do then.
I didn’t try to register this year but I will next year and I would like to see improvements. What happened yesterday was crazy, really. I checked the website at 2:30 pm and saw that it was already sold out… :-0
I couldn’t believe it! At first, I thought they had another website for 2009 and I was looking at the 2008 page… LOL
I understood it was not the case when I checked the participants list and couldn’t find runners that did the race last year -- like you, Blaine… I was shocked to see Erin on the list though which made me suspect that something went wrong.
Your ideas to improve the race registration sound great. I especially like the New Provider and the Transfer of Registrations ideas.
Thanks for this article and I sincerely hope that you are “in”! 🙂
Personally, I don’t like lotteries. If they do implement one, then hopefully there is a reachable qualifying standard that will allow people to bypass the lottery system. For example, taking the average time for 100th place for each age category, for example.
I have another thing that you may want to add. Like you, I received the blank white page after entering credit card information. I wasn’t sure if I got in, so I went to the credit card’s website, and didn’t see any charges. I didn’t get any kind of confirmation email. Wanting to make sure that I got in, I decided that I’d just register again and see if I got a different result. The second time actually went through, with a real confirmation page showing my number, and the eventual email proving that the registration worked. I spent the next hour or so wondering if the first registration went through. When the entrants list went up, I was relieved to see that my name appears only once. I figured all is well with my registration. This morning, I just received a second confirmation email from the beach to beacon. Now, it clearly states at the top that it is not a duplicate registration, but it lists my registration number as 0000, where before it was somewhere above 5000. Besides the disclaimer about not being a duplicate registration, and the number being different, the email was an exact duplicate of the one they sent out yesterday. It doesn’t make sense to me why they would send out a second confirmation email. Why add to the confusion surrounding registrations?
The Beach to Beacon is the best managed race in the state, but this registration process is just embarrassing and takes the entire race down a notch or two in my mind.
All worthy suggestions, obviously from somebody that knows a thing or two 🙂 Let us know if and how they follow up!
Sorry you didn’t get in Blaine. I ran that 5K yestserday (Kerrymen’s Pub) and immediately ran to my car after I finished to a spot I had staked out earlier for good reception so that I could sign on with my laptop and register myself and a running friend. Well once back at my car I had no reception so I had to drive about a mile away before I got a good enough reception. Anyways after that I spend about 15 minutes signing on and going through exactly what you speak of before I finally got a confirmation of my number (25xx and my friends only about 5 minutes later 34xx) I was wondering what might happen as I had gotten the “white page and no confirmation” after having input everything. Well later in the evening I found out I am entered twice. Hopefully they’ll let me transfer that registration over to another running friend who didn’t get in. Once back at the awards ceremony I was able to get a signal there and one more frined got in just before 1:45 and was number 58xx and shortly after we started getting the message that it had filled up.
I too would like to see things change and maybe some sort of qualifying standard to bypass any lottery wouldn’t be all bad. But an all lottery system would still shut out too many “serious” runners.
You are right though the race itself is a quality race and is very well run. I wouldn’t want to miss it!
Blaine,
I live in Atlanta, and have been looking forward to coming up to Maine this summer to run against Tom Ryan (and the rest of the over 50 group) since I bought your CD interview with Tom.
I tried to register from 12:01 p.m. with the same results that everyone else had. I constantly hit refresh, and even had 3 laptops running at one time trying to register for my wife & I.
I got to the final screen for credit card payment, and then got a blank white screen, which went no further, and didn’t get a confirmation.
Finally, I gave up at 3:00 p.m. to go out for a run. When I came back at 4:30 I tried to register once again, and got the screen saying that the registration limit of 6,000 had been met.
This was the most frustrating experience that I’ve ever had trying to register for a race.
Good news/Bad news. This morning I got an e-mail with my race registration confirmation, but my wife didn’t get registered, so she’ll be providing moral support at the race. She would rather be running the race.
Look forward to meeting you in person this summer, and enjoy your website.
Morning Blaine, gteetings from Miami Fl. I liked your comments on the B2B. One thing i would like to see is maybe a couple of weeks before the race someone could put a sign on both ends of Shore Rd that says “Caution Runners Training” or something of that nature. I know alot of people like to run that section to get acclimated and with traffic, the lack of shoulder and the twisting road it gets sketchy at times. just a thought…..pete
Good idea, Pete, I’ve added it to my list.
Ya.
I was planning on signing up and got home at 6 from work and well couldn’t believe how quick it filled up.
So, instead I decided I would join the lottery for the Mt. Washington Race. I’m not a fan of lottery, but I think this race has become big enough maybe it’s time to have to have either a qualifying time.
The one thing this does point out is that we need more races longer than 5k in Maine
Maybe you should do what I’ve done in the past. Watch the B2B on Saturday and then Run the Lobster Festival 10k in Rockland. It boast much the same course, running along the ocean, by a light house and at the finish you can eat fried dough and ride the Zipper.
It is everything the B2B isn’t, I think that’s a good thing. Giant corporate races are great for elites, competitive runners and the once-a-year brag to the friend at the bar racers, but for a mid-packer like me the hassle isn’t worth the effort.
For example I ran Boston, but the experience wasn’t as rich or personal as my qualifier in Lowell.
-Scott
Good point!
I haven’t run the lobster festival since 1996 maybe? It was my first 10k.
As for B2B -- I’d like to run it, because it is one of the most competitive races in the area and I like having a lot of fast guys around me. Granted, I’ve been in the top 100 for the past few years, but the competition is worth the hassle.
Looks like an old post, but found this site while trying to figure out how the start works. I run the Falmouth, MA 7 miler almost every year. That race, like B2B, has thousands of runners. However, the start is set up in “gates”. Runners are grouped by time into 7 “gates”. The gates are started about 4 minutes apart. Quite elegant. However still, I’m always tripping over, trying to find space to pass in that race. This will be my first B2B, so I can’t imagine how one mass start is going to work. My guess is its going to be ugly. Just wondering why B2B doesn’t use gates to start this race.
It can be a bit inconvenient, but the B2B is traditionally reluctant to introduce changes (although they’ve gotten better at that over the past few years since this was written) and the downhill start does help to spread the field out pretty quickly once you’ve actually crossed the starting line. As the race is chip timed and results are based on your net time (except for money awards which are gun time) it’s not a huge problem. How did you do this weekend?