Is Running only for the middle classes?
It’s hard to be churlish about the London Marathon; I completed it myself once, back in 2005. Although I ran what I now consider to be a pretty modest time, it was one of the most unforgettable days of my life. The sheer number of people, the colour, the spectators, the excitement, it really was a wonderful day.
The growth of the London Marathon is in terms of participation, at least, one of the success stories of British sport over the last 30 years.
Some idea of the increase in the appeal of the race is shown by the fact that the first ever London Marathon was held on 29 March 1981 with just under 8000 runners (from 20,000 applicants), Since then a total of 817,890 runners have completed the London Marathon since it started and a record 36,550 people finished in 2010.
Tomorrow I understand that over 50,000 runners will ‘toe the line’. In the year I ran it I read that £35m was raised for charity
So…what’s not to like?
Well, not much I suppose and I would never ever decry the valiant attempts of anyone running tomorrow but it’s hard to escape the feeling that the event is now primarily about charity rather than sport.
Take a look at this link which shows that over 13,000 places are taking up by people running for charity that have to commit to achieving certain levels of sponsorship, with £2,000 per runner being a not uncommon amount..
http://www.virginlondonmarathon.com/raising-money/raising-money/golden-and-silver-bonds/
Whilst, there will also be people who get in through the ‘ballot’ entry and choose to run for charity without a minimum funding commitment, it is now becoming common practice for Golden and Silver Bond status charities to compel their runners to reach minimum targets with tales of direct debit mandates being signed by runners to finance any funding shortfall themselves.
This leaves me feeling a certain sense of unease, to say the least, especially bearing in mind that non-charity runners are only offered a guaranteed entry if they are rejected from the ballot on five consecutive occasions. Five years is a long time to wait. Will you still be fit enough to run? Around 125,000 people are accepted into the ballot with, by my reckoning around 35,000 places to be allocated. There are of course, other ways of entering including going through the individual ‘ballots’ of any affiliated UK Athletic club, as shown here:
http://www.virginlondonmarathon.com/marathon-centre/enter-virgin-london-marathon/
Nonetheless one can’t help but feel that the extent to which ‘Charity’ has become a focus allied to the slim odds of getting a place via another method is making the London marathon somewhat less accessible than it could be.
I would argue that unless you work for a large employer your chances of being in a position to guarantee reaching a certain level of sponsorship are pretty slim. Is the London Marathon in danger of becoming a middle class elitist event where only those with the deepest pockets can afford to take part?
An interesting and to my mind worrying development is the knock on effect on other races. The BUPA branded ‘Great Runs’ seem to have exponential increases in entry fees; for instance the Manchester Great Run is charging £38 entry for its 10k race on May 20th; it may be coincidental but these price increases seem to have really kicked in since races adopted ‘official charities’ in the manner of the London Marathon. It isn’t that long ago that entry fees akin to a £1 a mile were the usual rule of thumb. In Manchester if you have to pay to enter you will be paying over £6 per mile for the privilege.
There is nothing more simple as a sporting pastime than going for a run. It seems ironic that the cost of turning ‘going for a run’ into ‘entering a race’ seems to be now moving into territory around and beyond a round of golf or golf club membership, if you take the Charity places scenario.
Another interesting point is whether the growth of mass participation in running, spearheaded by the London Marathon has led to an improvement in standards. My hunch is ‘no’. More of that perhaps on a later blog entry.
Studs, Stumps and Spikes 
I’d like to see statistics of the average age and number of runners in each age range. I suspect the average age will have gone up over the years and the percentage of runners in the 20 – 30 year old age range will have gone down.
A couple of years ago I did the Barcelona 1/2M. It cost 18 euros to enter (which was reduced to 15 if you had your own chip)! I’d recomend it to anyone who wants a big city run experience. It went past a lot of the major landmarks on a flat course.
Simon Richards
April 22, 2012
Rob, the “5 strikes and you’re in” rule has been removed at london, was a couple of years ago. GFA is the only guarantee for non charity people .
james
April 25, 2012
[…] As an aside, there’s a very interesting blog on the matter of charities, class and marathons here. When I’ve thought of something useful to say on the matter myself, I’ll say it. For […]
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