Road racing should be nearly cost-free, nearly every runner 
would agree. But did you know that your race entry fee doesn't 
usually cover your expenses?

It's true. Most races depend upon corporate or in-kind 
contributions to pay the bulk of their costs. In many cases, 
road races are simply loss leaders for charities and 
corporations seeking exposure or community goodwill.

With the right numbers, and if race management is run like a 
business--as does Washington's Capital Running Company, the 
folks who publish this newspaper--operations can be run in the 
black.The Georgetown and St. Patrick's Day 10Ks, both promoted 
and staffed by Capital Running, are among the region's largest 
races. Both pay for themselves--Georgetown for the first time in 
several years. Still, both races would be happy to sell the 
naming rights to a title sponsor and more completely cover their 
costs.

"We do exactly what we tell the charities not to do," said Kathy 
Freedman from Capital Running. "It's almost impossible to turn a 
profit on registration alone. We can do it at St. Patrick's 
because we have such good numbers. At Georgetown, our costs keep 
going up and we need a major sponsor, too. We can't go on like 
we have forever."

Going on means scraping by with hours of low-paying sweat 
equity, being satisfied with building good will toward next 
year's race, and with luck eking out a small profit for a small 
business. In a bad year, one with unexpected costs, poor 
weather, and a small turnout, going on means red ink in the 
bottom line.

The Georgetown Classic 10K is known for its challenging course 
and festive post-race street party. For 22 years, it has been a 
fixture on the local road racing calendar. Last year, 3,112 
registered, a good crowd by most any standard but down from the 
race's heyday in the early 1990s when a peak of 4,400 runners 
participated.

But recently some of the seams in the production have been 
showing.

"We've had to do things more cheaply," Freedman 
acknowledged. "The course last year was out and back and some of 
the nicer food items were downgraded several years ago. It's not 
the way we like to do that race." Expect more changes--for 2001, 
J. Paul's, the primary sponsor, has withdrawn.
Last year's budget projected expenditures of $128,430. Long 
sleeve T-shirts--3,200 at $4.85 each--cost $15,520. J. Paul's 
restaurant donated food and drinks budgeted at $10,000. 
Georgetown Park, the mall that hosts the race, provided awards 
in the form of gift certificates and merchandise worth $4,825. 
Random prizes valued at $3,500 were donated. The mall also 
covered the $4,595 cost of printing 60,000 race brochures. And 
remember the race brochure you got in the mail? Postage for 
40,000 of them cost just under $5,000.
 
Here's where the accounting gets a bit tricky, and why it is 
difficult to say exactly how much the event actually cost. 
Capital Running budgets advertising and promotion at $7,000, 
$6,075 of which was paid to itself for ads in the Washington 
Running Report. Finish line services, also paid to Capital 
Running, were budgeted for $8,750, $2.50 for each of 3,500 
registrants. Use of a mailing list of 30,000 runners (at $.05 
each) from the company's database and a mailing service for the 
brochure was budgeted at $4,000, although the latter was 
reimbursed at less than 50 percent.
 
ChampionChip rental cost $4,300. The finish area corral, 
recommended to ensure return of the chips, was budgeted but 
later shelved for a savings of $2,450. Chips not returned cost 
Capital Running several hundred dollars.
 
Other in-house costs, such as $6,000 for race management 
services, $4,000 seed money for the 2001 race, and Web site 
maintenance of $1,000, were budgeted. Whether they were ever 
paid in full is a matter of accounting.
 
And that's how it goes for many of the smaller budget lines: 
Items such as porta-johns, budgeted for $2,000, were trimmed in 
light of access to mall restrooms, so that only twenty rather 
than forty toilets were rented at $50 each. Costs for banners 
and signage were trimmed; even an additional $2,000 donation to 
a local charity was scraped when the beneficiary was deemed 
unappreciative of the previous $10,000 donation.
 
Competition from other events and changes in the course--
primarily due to complaints from neighborhood activists--have 
dampened corporate enthusiasm and raised the cost of the 
permitting process and the man-hours devoted to meeting with 
local government and neighborhood officials. Last year's efforts 
in that regard were only partially successful and the course was 
constrained to an out-and-back along Canal Road.

"We've pitched the race for 20 years as one with an especially 
challenging course and as a good marathon tune-up," said Rick 
Freedman, president of Capital Running. "But the challenge these 
days is the neighbors."

Although the course last year was aesthetically less pleasing 
and traffic control logistics significantly less difficult, 
costs for police support were nearly $7,400. The Lawyers Have 
Heart 10K course, also in Georgetown but not managed by Capital 
Running, has been similarly curtailed.
 
So what's the bottom line? Hard to say, except that large races 
like Georgetown and St. Patrick's continue to exist so they must 
make some money. The St. Patrick's Day 10K had 4,800 registered 
runners. At an average of $20 per, that's $96,000 taken in. 
Georgetown, at the same average, had $62,240 in registration 
income. Add the in-kind contributions, and the $128,430 budget 
isn't close to being covered without a lot of unpaid bills 
and/or lower-than-anticipated wages.
 
 Any way you slice it, it's a tough way to make a living--
consider that the next time you want to bandit a race.

Subsequent to Jim's article, a new sponsor and charity has 
been found for the Georgetown Classic 10K, and a new, more 
scenic course has been developed. Editor