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Can I add- they need to specify if the women’s shirts will be women’s sizing or not? It’s usually about a size different and about 1/2 the races now have women’s specific shirts…but you never know.
I’m with you all the way on same day packet pickup. There are two races in Santa Cruz (northern California), the Sentinel Olympic and the Big Kahuna Half, that I’ve done once but will never do again until they offer same day packet pickup. I’m convinced that the race directors have some sort of under-the-table deal with the city fathers, somethings along the lines of “If you’ll grease the skids for the police and permits then we’ll do everything in our power to get the athletes to arrive the day before, stay overnight, and spend hotel and meal money in your city.”
And as to the porta-potties, this was the scene at the Vineman Full in ’07. Almost comical, eh? :)
I’ll second Maggs’ point about ws shirt sizes. And add (from someone who can get lost on her own street) it is sooooo helpful to have volunteers or policeman at cross points – ESPECIALLY if, say the half goes one way and the full goes another. My brain is not always up to seeing much less processing a tiny little sign or bizarre spray paint symbol on the pavement at that point in the race. A real person telling me where to go is a blessing!
wow, i love this post-and coming from a techy who KNOWS how easy posting the results is is even better. i’ll add just HAVING women’s shirts sizes at races makes me happy. i don’t understand why races i sign up for 9 months in advance can’t order me a woman’s shirt that i can wear again.
good post. thx ray.
Nation’s Tri was a TERRIBLE set up last year, and it doesnt look to be any better this year.. I’ll probably metro down during lunch to pick up my packet, and then bring my bike down later. Should I feel the need to make 2 trips before the race? no.
My race day complaint is directors that toss too many people on the bike racks. I’ve been to a race where we had 10 bikes on a rack designed more appropriately for 6… our bikes were touching, and it was a fiasco. Plenty of space to add more racks and remedy the problem, but I haven’t gone back to find out.
Agree with you on packet pick up race results and pics but the packet pick may be done at a place (like Nations) just because of sponsorship YOU WOULD HAVE 3000 athletes visiting the hotel and that may help sell but I am with you. You no what I wolud add have good music on the transition area before the race.. something to pump you up before a race ..many races put country music or YMCA and hate it
good luck at lake Anna this Sunday
I could not agree more when it comes to race food. Don’t make me stand in line with the masses for what amounts to an orange slice and some old juice. I will forever love my first half marathon (Santa Cruz 1/2) because they handed you a box of food at the finish – no standing in line – with everything included (bagel, peanut butter, juice, fruit cup, bag of trail mix, etc etc).
Beautiful, Ray.
I honestly couldn’t think of anything more to add.
It’s these things that make me seek out the small races more and more.
I honestly can’t understand where a company gets off trying to sell you pictures of yourself for as much as $100. Seriously, do they think people will pay more for a picture than they did for the actual race?
I’m with Maggs, they need to specify women’s shirt sizing for sure (and if more races could offer women’s shirts that would be amazing, because a men’s short sleeve tech shirt…may as well just give me a cotton shirt instead).
And race day package pick up is great… But… The race I am doing in a few weeks has race day package pick up, but the pre-race meeting is at 5 pm the day before. Pain in the rear since race site is about 1.5 hours from where I am staying.
And yeah…don’t get me started on the pricing of photographs!
ABSOLUTELY on women’s sizing for the shirts- that was one of the only good things about the Nike Women’s Marathon.
And I seriously do not understand, for the life of me, how snapfish, etc can sell you prints for oh, .10/ea and race photos are $20. I’ve NEVER purchased a race photo mostly on principle about how ridiculous that is.
Another thing that makes me absolutely insane is aid stations that have only sports drink and no water. It happened once and I paid dearly. It was not cool.
My big complaint is races that only have size XL shirts. WTF were you thinking??? Small, fit people do 5K, 10K, half mary, full mary and triathlons. There are probably a greater number of small fit people who would love a size small or medium shirt than the Clydesdale and Athenas who would like a large or XL shirt. SO ORDER MORE SMALL SHIRTS AND DON’T MAKE ME WEAR A XL RACE MINI-DRESS.
Oh, and I love races where the volunteers have your bike ready for you as you are running through transition and take it from you as you head into T2…it makes me feel like a pro racer.
Um, yea. Agree 100%. The race I ran on Sunday still has 2008 information on the main page. Results have been posted on another site, but there is no link from the actual race site. I only found it out through the magic of google. Who cares about results anyways, right? No excuse.
BTW – the best feature of the GW Parkway setup was the text messages that actually were sent in real time. I’ve signed up for that at Marine Corps and other races and they are delayed by 5-10 minutes. Big brownie points earned in my view for whoever thought up that feature. It was critical to trying to get photos of people during the race. Now if they could only do that for triathlons…
I like it.
I like door prize raffles. At my last race, I put in for one of those athletic strollers (I obviously have no children).
One thing that goes along with not posting results right away… is when they don’t tell you WHERE to find the results! I’ve had FIFTY people come to my blog looking for times and photos from our last 5K.
Oh! And how EVERY time I go to a race, I end up with an XL Tshirt even though I asked for a M!
You got me all riled up now. Gurrr…
Love the list of likes and dislikes for races. Oh and what about the races that only have big size shirts… even for us little peoples… what’s up with that????
My #1 complaint is not having enough volunteers on the course telling us where to go. Or maybe they’re out there but just stand there dumbfounded. Be looud and obvious. When we’re going balls-out, we can’t think, so treat us like children.
I totally agree w/all of those things. The race picture prices annoy the crap out of me. I also HATE disorganized race sites where you have to hunt to find info or it’s not updated properly.
I have one. The Deuces Wild Triathlon in Show Low, AZ has wet suit strippers to help you out after the swim. It is great!
i concur :-)
Sweet post – I agree with all of this, especially the packet pickup thing. And I can’t wait to hear your rant on race photos – you know you have a sympathetic ear from me.
Hahaha spoken like a true racer! Who would have thought that it would be such a big deal to post results on the same day, oh and toilets too, that would be my biggest issue! We all want to use them, who would have thought that you should have more than two?
Agreed on all points! Also, note to RDs:
Women do not want white technical shirts that turn transparent when wet. Honest, we don’t.
Couldn’t have said it better.
Last year at Mohican 100, it took like 3 WEEKS….to get the results posted on the website. Unreal to have to wait that long to see their results. Plus the RD didn’t have awards (Buckles) to hand out to anyone at the awards ceremony.
amen. Where do i sign.
I’ll add mine. Water. Oh, and cups. How HARD IS IT TO HAVE ENOUGH CUPS? AND ENOUGH WATER? DO YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE REGISTERED? REALLY????????? NO IDEA WHAT THE TEMPS WILL BE??????????
If it happened only once, i’d say it’s a fluke. but it’s happened too many times.
NOTE TO RDs: PEOPLE NEED WATER WHILE RACING.
and photos. don’t get ME started. there’s a reason everyone steals them!
Working PT for a race management firm, I’m part of a team that works hard to post race results soon after people finish. But there are times when it doesn’t happen as quickly as we’d like do to technical difficulties. And occasionally a race bandit (someone running with someone else’s bib) will mess up our results and cause delays too if they place.
I agree with the porta johns, but also can not stand when there is no soap or purcell. The Augusta 70.3 had very few porta johns, and othing for sanitation. It was the worst I have ever seen at a tri or road race.
Cheap photos means that you don’t make a profit which means that you can’t stay in business very long.
You sooooo don’t know anything about the BUSINESS of professional photography.
Hi Delane-
I’d love to hear your perspective some more. Are you a professional sports photographer? Understanding sports photography is very different than being a ‘normal’ professional photographer. Both from a composition perspective, as well as from a client perspective.
In my mind it’s being approached the wrong way. The simple reality is I’m not going to buy overpriced photos that are generally crap. Whether or not I’m familiar with professional photography is entirely besides the point. There are in fact some great sports photographers out there that I would pay for a photo from. But it’s up to the Race Director (which was the title of my post) to determine which photographer/company to hire. Hiring local photographers that offer reasonable prices over the ‘big box’ type photographres is something that some races do, and I support thoes races. Simple as that.
Professional photographers have to change their methods given the accessibility of higher quality cameras at lower price points. Go visit any photographers forum where the pro’s hang and you’ll find endless debate on how this is changing the face of the professional photographer. Any professional photographer who thinks they can continue to use the business practices of the 1990’s, will soon find themselves without a business. They have to re-think how they do business, and their pricing structure. In the same way so many other organizations are re-thinking business over the past few years. For example, applications that from a function standpoint used to cost $30-50, now cost $1.99 on the iPhone. Volume over pricing.
Thanks for dropping by!
I hate when they sneak in a 10% online “convenience” fee at the very end of registration. Paper registration is just as easy for me, and only costs about 50 cents. Any race associated with a charity will be getting a donation from me if they don’t charge an extra fee to register. If I was a race director, I would want people to sign up online to prevent errors and exceeding capacity, so I’d make it cheaper than paper registration, or at least not tack on an extra fee at the end.
Ray, I like to come back to this post every now and then because it crystalizes for me what I do and don’t like about the races I participate in. I finally put my own list up here:
link to firsttimertirathlete.blogspot.com
Thanks for the inspiration!
I agree with all the stuff listed already.
There are a few things more I personally like:
1. In some races you can get your registered bib times sent as a textmessage. This is the case in the Copenhagen Marathon, and they send both the half-marathon time and the finish time. This allows you to know that the time your watch recorded is correct, that the bib worked, and allows your friends to have realtime update. They did charge around $1 for more than one textmessage, but I still like it!
2. Drinks at hydration stations. The runs I have been to usually supply drinks in small cups that makes you spill half the content. It´s sticky and annoying. In the Barcelona Marathon last year you could choose to take a half litre disposable drinking bottle instead at the stations. That was perfect and resulted in a much better hydration of me (and most of the other runners i suppose). It is ofcourse a bit more expensive, but the entrance fee is pretty high anyway…
I know I’m late to the rant party, and maybe this is a normal thing for trail races I just never noticed before, but a few weeks ago I ran a trail race that was billed as a 25k. I like that distance, it’s a good, easy distance for me, very comfortable to follow a half marathon a few weeks earlier. When we’d run that distance (measured by all the various GPS and foot pod devices of the 4 or 5 people around me, simultaneously), we happened to also hit an unmarked (like most of the decision points) lovely flat road within sight of the finish line, roughly 200 feet away… Did the race end? No. It added another lovely hill. And then another (it was actually one of the prettiest parts of the race). Rather than a 25k, it was well over 30k. Granted they said it would be “about” 25k… but off by over 3 miles? I don’t like crossing the finish and feeling not only like I just ran a 30k trail race but ALSO like the victim of a particularly rude in-joke.
Cycling events – drink stations on the hills please, not on the flat. Nothing worse than having to stop while you’re in a sweet bunch with no chance to get back on.
If they’re on a hill you can fang it up ahead of the group, stop and refill, and then at least have fighting chance of getting back on
Hello, I love the site and I have been reading it all day due to a slow day at the office.
I agree with all you have listed in this article except the part about photography. I am a professional photographer of 14 years and split my shooting time between photographing races and wedding/portrait photography. I also compete in running races and recently was bitten by the tri bug and will mostly be competing in tri’s now.
I agree that some photographers are expensive. I shoot for Brightroom, one of the largest event shooters in the country. The prices are fair, $12 for a 5×7 or 4 for $20. They do charge too much for digital copies, $30. Even with these middle of the road prices, they were bought out/merged with another company last year.
The thing that most people don’t realize is the massive amount of work involved in shooting and organizing these events. As an example, say I shoot a tri with 500 participants and I shoot every single racer in each sport, impossible shooting solo. If I only took 1 image for each sport I would be sorting through 1500 images to properly tag them so they could be found when you search for them. In reality, I shoot 3-4 images of each person as they come by. That would give me a range of 4,500-6,000 to sort and upload. Lets assume that it takes me 5 seconds to properly tag every image. Based upon that I am looking at 3.75-5 hours just to sort and tag every photo. This doesn’t include the time needed to upload to my website, 3-5 hours and the cost to host these photos and pay the lab percentage when ordered. Also, most of the races I shoot require me to have special liability insurance. Additionally, it seems that 1/2 the races I shoot are in inclement weather. Equipment risk has to be built into the cost or I won’t be able to function if I ever lose a camera due to weather, hasn’t happened yet (knock on wood).
So let’s assume that 20% of all the racers order a digital file from me. I charge $9 for the file. To conduct this transaction I pay 10% to my website hosting company leaving me with $8.10. 100 orders at $8.10 = $810. Reduce that by 33% for income taxes and I am left with $542. Then lets subtract the cost of gas, say $30 and $30 for event specific insurance. So now I have roughly $482 left over. I shoot every racer so lets assume a sprint tri lasts 5 hours and then add the additional time to work on the photos. That would be anywhere from 11.75-15 hours of time invested leaving me an hourly rate of $41-32/hour. This would be if I was the only shooter for the event. If I had another shooter, I would be making roughly $25-18/hour.
These numbers are an ideal situation. Most times the sell through rate is much lower lower, sometimes as low as 5% for a race of 100 people. Add to that the cost of equipment, roughly $10k for me and hopefully you see how the cost to do business is much more than charging a couple bucks for a file.
I will concede the point that there are a lot of poor photographers trying to make a quick buck thinking this is the way to do it. They buy the cheapest slr they can get with the lowest quality lens and shoot on program mode. When I run a race, I can pick these photographers out when I see them. I take great pride in my work. While I am not the cheapest or the most expensive, I feel I charge a fair price for the quality I provide.
Sorry for the long post but this is an issue not only affecting race photography but wedding and portrait photography as well. Everyone with a camera thinks they are a wedding photographer.
I like the math, but none of it works if people don’t buy the photos. In over 20 years of doing various races from 5k to half marathons to tri’s, I have purchased exactly one photo. I only bought it because it was offered at a low price AND I had a coupon, so the 5 x7 *print* cost about $3. That’s about the max I am willing to pay for a typical race photo. If it is my race of a lifetime, the photo looks professional, and I actually don’t look totally awful (some photographer skill matters, some pure chance) I might consider paying as much as $8 for a digital photo for which I get full rights to use as I see fit, with sufficient resolution to shrink or blow up however I choose. I understand this is a lot of work for the photographer, and I understand that at these prices the margin on photos is razor thin, but I think you make up for it with volume. If you get lots of people to buy photos by 1) having many from which to choose, 2) pricing each photo as low as can be conceived, and 3) having them available to download and purchase within 24 hours, I think you still make your money.
Very late to the discussion – but this reply is exactly the point the original poster needs to grasp.
Joshua has posted that out of 100 competitors he may only get a 5% take up rate, but uses the example of getting 100 orders to make $810.
so lets say the competition has 2000 competitors – this will equal the 100 orders making $810 he quotes.
100 orders @ $8.10 = $810
200 orders @ $4.05 = $810
300 orders @ $2.025 = $810 (I know you cant charge that – but i’m making a point)
I dont know a single tri-athlete (or athlete) who doesn’t want a cool photo of them post race. Unless the photo is terrible, we want the photos. The sad reality is that our wives are terrible with a camera (well, mine is, bless her!).
I would be certain that if it was $3 per photo file, a huge number of athletes would buy a minimum of two files and maybe even 3 or 4 (Swim exit if good, bike leg, run, finish). I would say a conservative estimate would be 10-15% uptake which means in a race of 2000 people again (using data extrapolated from Joshua’s argument as per above):
10% of people buying only 2 photos: 200 x $6 = $1200
10% of people buying 3 photos: 200 x $9 = $1800
15% of people buying only 2 photos: 300 x $6 = $1800
15% of people buying 3 photos: 300 x $9 = $2700
And just in case anybody says doubling the number of people buying photos is unrealistic (given the reasonable price its not), just a 2% increase in people who buy 2 photos works out as better business by $30…
7% of people buying only 2 photos: 140 x $6 = $840
Given the above, the arguments from photographers who say we dont understand and its not that simple ring very hollow. Let me be clear, we know that often a LOT of work goes into it. But equating that to needing to charge more is simply bad business sense. People will only ever spend what THEY perceive to be reasonable TO THEM and what THEY can afford. The buyer does not care about the workload of the photographer if they cannot afford the overpriced photo.
Bring the price into that reasonable area and they will buy; and likely buy multiple copies.
//rant over//
EDIT:
error above near the top
**400 orders @ $2.025 = $810 (I know you cant charge that – but i’m making a point)**
Great to hear from an insider. I am late to the comment and being years late, things may have changed. I don’t buy print photos. What would I do with them? I have a few that were framed and sent to me by sponsors. They sit in a closet. But I’d happily pay for digital photos. Even “too low res to print” because I am only ever going to look at them on my phone or computer or post them to FB or IG. Maybe race directors could crowd source photos, anyone in the crowd tags or uploads, have a bot or someone on fiverr assign them race numbers and then charge a nominal fee to download. Much lower quality composition etc, but an alternative.
Paul, I understand your argument about people not buying photos. And you’ve elucidated quite nicely the costs of photography. But I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that your subjects at a triathlon:
– Have spent well over 10k on their bikes, swim gear, running gear, fitness trackers, etc.
– Have spent thousands of hours of their time with no reimbursement training, running, cycling, swimming, and trying not to be run over by cars and boats while doing so. (In many cases, they have the scars and medical bills to prove that this isn’t always possible)
– Have spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on travel and food just for the privilege of spending a couple hundred more dollars for a bib, a t-shirt that doesn’t fit, and an opportunity to wear neoprene and lycra in front of a crowd of thousands for a $0 reward even if they win in most cases.
So maybe try and see it from our perspective? Without us spending tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours, you would nothing to photograph. It’s much more quid pro quo than you seem to think it is.
Edit: Josh, not Paul. Sorry, Paul.
I enjoyed this post. I pretty much just run 5Ks, but adding in a couple 10Ks this year.
The Toilet issue is definitely a big one, I ran a race that had 50-100 people and they had 1 porta john and nothing else. That made the race start about 20min late.
My biggest pet peeve is races that only allow mail-in (paper) registration instead of online registration.
Enjoyed reading and agreed on all the points listed above.
The result delay happened once when I first ran my 15km race last year in Paris. I ran with the time-chip the organizer handed me in a pack with my bib. I finished in 75 mintues. Somehow, right after the race, I read on my phone an SMS from the organizer that said “you ran in 53min, bravo!” (We had an SMS option where you can get result soon after your finish.). I emailed /SMSed the organizer, saying there must have been a mistake. Apparently the 53min-runner also complained rightfully, and it turned out that my time-chip and his were wrongly numbered in a swapped way (Our bib numbers kind of looked alike, like 1523 and 1253). I understand it’s possible when organizers reuse the time-chip for different races and workers re-number or re-pack the time-chip chitchatting and drinking.
It was a morning race, and the correct race result (with him appearing at 53min and me at 75min) was up on the internet later that evening, so it was not too bad, but the waiting was hard and having the fear of a wrong result was even harder.
And how but a few more Clydesdale divisions sprinkled around (even if it is just a “sort results by” option)? I’ll never beat the wee skinny guys, but I wouldn’t mind knowing how I’m stacking up against the other plus sized guys in the field.
Hi, I realize I am late to the game I just found this article and really enjoyed it. You are right on about so many of your requests. One in particular is the prizes. I think prizes are amazing and make even more fun at races. This summer I competed in a smaller tri and thought it had a nice course and was so excited to finally place in my age group. The excitement quickly faded when I found out they had not only had no medals for finishing but that for placing in your age group you only got a rather sad looking mug. The overall winners only got swim caps in addition to their mugs, it was very disappointing.
Well I’m even later posting, but I thought your readers would like this:
Inaugral Tour of Yorkshire (cycling), the final day sportive (3 distances 35, 55 and +70 miles) all starting and finishing across the pro’s finish later that day. 6000 participants and sold out in 2 weeks.
The final watering/food station which everyone had to pass, 3 as you say portapotties (we would say loo’s). OK neither my wife of me are quick on a cycle we ride for fun, but waiting 1/2 hours for ‘she who must be obeyed’ to use to facilites was frankly a joke!
If theres a sportive next year and any of the organisers read this – MORE LOO’S, MORE LOO’s MORE LOO’S – get the message. Rant over.
Oh and love your website!
Late to the discussion too!
I am not a pro photographer, but talking to some who are they get peeved by the prices charged for race photographs. In some of the races here, a new trend has started where the race fee is a little higher for everyone, but all the pictures taken are FREE (digital versions). If you want a print, there is still a charge for that (to cover paper, materials, time, shipping, etc…). This, I think, is good for the photography company – since they know right from the outset how much they are going to make on the event – instead of waiting to see how many individual shots are purchased. A relatively new trend in some of races that I’ve seen in my neck of the woods – it may spread!
I’ve had a few races do this as well, and it seems far and away the best option. Pay the photographers a flat rate fee, enough that compensates the company and multiple photographers fairly, and be done with it. Put the pictures up on the website sorted and searchable by bib number.
This is by far and away the best way to do it. Increase the race fee slightly, and include a digital print for with the option of purchasing additional prints from the photographer directly.
After everything triathletes spend on equipment, food, training, travel, lodging, and race registration, being expected to pay an additional $20 just for a photo is a slap in the face. Especially since without the athletes, the photographers wouldn’t make any money at all.
I know this article is several years old, but I’ll throw this out there anyways.
In Japan, you are more likely to get a finisher’s certificate than a medal at a race. I’ve run a few races in Japan and after you finish, you are given a certificate (usually) with your clock time, chip time and place based on number of over-all entries and sometimes by gender. Some big races, like the Tokyo Marathon, will mail you your certificate a short while after the race. One race I ran, you could even get your certificate laminated on-site for a few extra yen. Races also sell commemorative frames for your finisher’s certificate.
Way late to this but I would like to see more water at start line corrals. I have gotten in the habit of bringing my own and invariably get asked “where’d you find that?” I understand this can end up being a lot of water/trash to deal with but everyone is trying to get ready to race, it would be nice to have the ability to actually do so.