Blogs : Nate Jenkins

I'm a National Champion! sort of...

     First if you are looking for my weekly training I posted it before this blog so its up.  Ok so this weekend I went to the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) and ran their national 5k championship all in Cincinnati hosted by the Flying Pig Marathon and other races.

            Let me first preface this with a bit about the RRCA.  They gave me one of there Road Scholar Awards last year which in addition to being a huge honor also made quitting my job and training full time for the trials a possibility.  That was a huge part of my performance at the trials and as such I am extremely grateful to their organization.  I also had a great time at the convention functions I went to and learned a lot about their history and their roll in the sport.

            Now I was invited down by the RRCA to be the Road Scholar representative at their convention and since I was coming I would obviously run their national 5k championships.  I don’t particularly like the 5k cause I suck at it but it ended up fitting my schedule quite nicely.  I also figured this would be a good race the other RRCA national championships I know of are the Cherry Blossom 10 mile, the Parkersburg News and Sentinel Half Marathon and the 10k in Alabama the name of which is slipping my mind but it has hosted the USATF nationals as well.  All these events are quite competitive.  This one was not.  I’m not sure if the Flying pig people just assumed that throwing the national championship title up would bring in a solid field or what.  But they put up no prize money and they didn’t bother to bring in a single Athlete.  The RRCA brought me in and their runner of the year.  That was it for the men’s competitive field, 3^rd place was a very nice HS kid, who’s name I’ve forgotten but he wants to walk on at Miami in the Fall.

            Now I’m not saying that every race should have a huge prize purse but I as a professional runner do believe that the race for the win is a compelling part of any event and Prize money helps assure the best possible level of competition.  Now the Flying Pig races offer no money.  Its something I disagree with but its there call, fine.  But they bid for and were hosting a national championship.  I know its not there thing and they can claim naiveté in terms of not knowing how to put together a professional field but not putting up prize money is shameful.  Its not like they don’t have the money.  This is a truly successful race that is very well sponsored.  I would be surprised if after all the sponsorship money is counted up they aren’t making a profit already.  But lets run on the assumption that the sponsorship dollars are covering expenses.  Now they had 911 finishers who paid between $25 and $35 in the 5k, they also had at least that many who paid  5 dollars less to run in the not chip timed 5k.  They had 1254 finishers who paid between $30 and $50 to run the 10k.  The half had 7353 finishers each who paid $50 to $80, the marathon had 4725 finishers at $60 to $100.  That is a total of 14,243 finishers who paid between $25 and $100.  Now that doesn’t include the 1000 or so in the not chip timed 5k or the relays teams that paid $220 to $500 or anyone who didn’t show up or finish the races but paid an entry fee, which was probably a good number because of the rain.  Now they also had about 2000 kids in races but I’m hoping that all that money went into stuff for the kids.  What’s my point with all the numbers.  If this race committee had simply said “Gee we are hosting a national championship maybe we should offer some prize money.”  They could have easily committed one dollar from every entry to drum up at least 15k.  Split that between the men and women and you have a 7500 prize purse on both sides  pay 5 deep and you could have easily done something like 3k 2k 1k, 800 700.  You put up that kind of money and people will show up.  But better yet why not for this one year say we are going to really go for it and bring in some people and take two bucks from every entry.  Now you got 15k to spend on travel money as well.

   Point is it wouldn’t take much for a race like this to put on a class race.  Instead they put on what was honestly an embarrassment that everyone involved should be ashamed to call it a national championship.

   Now coming down off my soap box.  I had a great trip and the RRCA’s hospitality was great.  I enjoyed the city very much and I had some very nice runs.  Also I got to talk with some great people and I had a nice conversation with Dick Beardsley who is one of my biggest hero’s in the sport.  I really relate to him as a runner, to quote him “about two weeks before boston (in 1982) I ran my pr, 29:12, and I was tickled pink.  Alberto (Salazar) ran like 27:20’s that same weekend but two weeks later who only beat me by 2 seconds at Boston.” 

   Dick was an absolute beast in the marathon, both in terms of how fast he ran at his best, 2:08:50’s at Boston on a day when the temp was in the 70’s and 2:09:30’s at grandma’s a record that will probably never be approached, and his consistency of top performances on short notice.  I believe he was at one time in the Guinness book of world records because he PR’d in each of his first 13 marathons.  Also he run one marathon after another, Houston in jan. London in april, grandma’s in june.  All fast.  I’m not positive about this but I think in 1981 he ran 2:12 at Houston, 2:11 at London and 2:09 at grandma’s.  I asked him how he found time to train wasn’t he just recovering from and backing off for the races and he said he didn’t really bother too much with recovery or backing off.  He said he ran 100 or so most weeks after a marathon and then just got back to work from there. 

            I also really like Dick because he is a talker and a story teller and let me tell you the man can weave a tail.

            So that’s it a little complaining a little explaining and a little history.  Oh ya and now I get to tell people I’m a national champion.  The only problem is I’ll feel dirty every time I do, just like when I tell them I’ve run 4 mins in the mile.

Untitled Comment

2:17 AM, May 12, 2008 .. Posted by Anonymous

" I also really like Dick"