Whether you agree with that rule or not, it is there. I personally have a lot of issues with the way that USATF operates, but I still tend to abide by their rules when I race because I give myself the moral obligation not to break the rules. Hopefully I can get back into shape where I can start going to money races again where those types of rules do become relevant!

First, be aware that I wrote this article almost 7 years ago, and at that time the major reasons I had a problem with bandits were from an ethical standpoint. If you read responses I’ve made in the comments, you’ll see that my position remains unchanged but my reasons for it are much more serious now that I am more educated on the matter. (I really should rewrite the article. It is one of the most popular ones on my site.)

For my history, I’m also a competitive runner, especially at the time I wrote this, often placing in the top 10% of a field (my proudest race being my first marathon win 5 or 6 years ago.) Since writing this, I’ve gotten into running more trail, mountain and ultra races and personally enjoy the more laid-back atmosphere. I’ve also been directing races for quite a few years now, being responsible for between 15 and 20 races per year as well as volunteering at most of the races the multiple running clubs I belong to put on.

One of the races that I direct is very popular, and the town imposed an 800 person cap on us a few years ago. Last year we had a lot of problems with bandits due to having had to cancel the race the year before (3 times!) due to weather and not everybody being able to get into the race, and you may not think you are causing any harm but we did nearly lose our permit this year because of all the extra bodies that the town told us we couldn’t have out on the course. Luckily they gave us an extra year to get away from that craziness caused by canceling 2 years ago and we managed not to exceed our capacity this year. And all of that is with a very good relationship with the town! The only sticking point was with the extra bodies and cars out on the course.

For the past 3 years, I’ve been a volunteer state representative for the Road Runners Club of America, the organization that provides the most comprehensive and cost effective insurance to races in the Unites States, and who has managed to avoid raising the cost for that insurance for (I think) 6 years now. The problem, however, is that they can’t insure as many categories of races because of the problems some races raise, and in the examples that are given to us each year as to why certain races are dropped I can only think of one example that did not involve a bandit.

I just got home this week from the RRCA National Convention, where sessions about insurance are offered every year, and topics such as safety (especially in the wake of the bombings) and trends in racing were also offered. In all 3 of those sessions, the importance of proper waivers were stressed (and there are now precedents where a waiver did provide protection as it laid out the specific dangers of running that race.)

I am not a fan of the rising prices of races. We got to see a very humorous graph about the largest marathons in the country and how much they cost over the past 5 years, and MCM showed the least growth, while Boston, Disney, Chicago and one or two others only went up by 3 times the rate of inflation, and New York City basically looked like a logarithmic progression (it now costs more than THREE times as much as I paid when I ran it 7 or 8 years ago!)

Fortunately, there’s a backlash against these high prices in many areas, with reasonably priced races that still put on high quality events becoming more popular. For example, I signed up for 4 races between March and June this year that total over 200 miles of racing (a 6 hour, 50 mile, 50k and 100 miler) at the distances I signed up for (but that had options as low as 3.5 miles and 10k) for $10 less than it would have cost at the cheapest I could have gotten into Boston.

There are alternatives, and I just personally don’t understand the fascination with bucking authority by running in events that somebody doesn’t agree with their cause or the price tag or the speed with which it sold out (not claiming you are any of those, but if you read the comments above you’ll find quite a few people like that.)

If somebody wants to watch a football game or baseball game, they aren’t allowed into the stadium without a ticket. If somebody wants to drive a race car, they certainly aren’t allowed onto the track at the Daytona 500 without having raced in qualifying races. Do you think that people should be? If so, I disagree with you and am curious how you would justify that. If not, then why is running a race any different?

I also learned the hard way that my 38 year old body does not hold up like it used to and while I have a recent half marathon PR of 1:18:07, I’ve also found it very difficult to train for and compete in half marathons without injury. To date, I’ve trained for and signed up for 4 half marathons. Of those, I’ve been injured 3 times… Once while training where I had to back out of the race ($75 wasted), once while training where I ran the race anyway and needed micro-fracture surgery on my knee afterwards, one successful injury-free one and the most recent was last year’s race where I strained my calf at mile 11 and had to DNF(another $80 wasted).

Not counting these races, I’ve run 13 miles or more on many occasions. It’s not until I am pushing the pace and trying to be competitive that I end up injured. Unlike many runners, I don’t sign up for races just to finish. There’s no satisfaction for me there. In fact, if my name is going to be in the results, I want to make sure I’m giving it my all. After last year’s injury and DNF, I swore that I would never run a half marathon again. That said, I love the experience of running a race with so much crowd support. You don’t find that in 5k races which are my current race of choice. So I decided to run the race this past weekend. This is the same race that I needed knee surgery after the first time and had the calf strain in last year. But this time, I went into it just wanting to run to enjoy it. As promised, I didn’t take a single drop of water or utilize any of the course amenities. Had I had an injury, I would have limped myself back on home and called it a learning experience. Instead, I learned that I unknowingly paced a random stranger for 3/4ths of the race. He waited for me after the race and thanked me for helping to push through the wind and hills. As a result, he finished with a time that was at the upper end of his goal range (1:26) and I got a good workout in and felt great for having found a way to enjoy running a half marathon.

So here we are. I’m the thief (of nothing) and course hazard (hardly). When race organizers schedule their support, they do so with a built-in margin of error. The organizers of this race are not at risk of having their event cancelled because I was on the course. I helped a fellow runner and enjoyed the entire experience as a whole. Will I ever do it again? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not looking to get into the habit of jumping into races without paying for them. I’d rather give than receive. You’re free to judge me all you like for it (doesn’t mean I have to like it so yes, I’m entitled to have an opinion on your being judgmental). If you lived and raced nearby, I may very well have been the guy that helped pace you or handed you a water during other races.

I find your “very deep hatred for anyone who sues for ridiculous things” commendable and I share that opinion. But, your belief that that makes it so that “the race and its organizers are at no risk” is false, no matter what your opinion is. We do live in a litigious society where people do sue for stupid things where they are the ones that were at fault. Even if you do come in a hard spot a few years down the road and do resist the urge to scrape some money together in any way possible, can you say that if you were somehow killed or severely incapacitated on the course that your family would also avoid seeking legal action? Can you guarantee that there won’t be enough bandits at the race for the permitting authorities to notice and deny future permits because the race didn’t follow the terms of their permit? Can you guarantee that you won’t get in the way of somebody that paid for the race and negatively impact that experience?

You may not care. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t think that it’s rude or that you would be better off volunteering, which is just as rewarding an activity as running the race and would certainly be more appreciated by the community.

And as far as lawsuits and waivers are concerned, I don’t even know where to start… You’re a moron if you think you can’t sue just because of a waiver. And its the court’s fault I’d they unjustly award someone for their own negligence.

I never claimed that somebody can’t sue because they have a waiver, and it doesn’t matter if it’s the court’s fault or not. I can only share information that I’ve gotten in my training as a state representative of the Road Runner’s Club of America, the organization that provides insurance to a high percentage of the road and trail races in the United States.

The problem isn’t that I’m a moron and that the courts are making unjust decisions. The problems are that if the insurance company is losing money on policies that they are making, they either stop issuing those policies or they raise the prices. If a race can’t get or can’t afford insurance, then the race director would be the moron for putting the race on because if somebody sued the race director and they didn’t have insurance to protect their assets, then the race director would potentially lose their house and everything they own.

A waiver won’t necessarily prevent somebody from sueing, but it can make a difference in damages, it can prevent a court from making an “unjust” decision, and it will help the insurance companies that we work with from raising their prices.

In the past couple of years, the RRCA has had to drop whole categories of races because they were too expensive to insure and would have required the insurance cost for all races to be go up. If you’d like to know more about how the insurance program works, click here to visit the RRCA’s website where all the details are provided.