One of my biggest gripes is races that have multiple distances going on. I’ve found that they have a higher than average chance of screwing up, due to the chaos of multiple distances. I was rather critical of The Heart Center of the Rockies Half Marathon in my race review. I think this race has potential, but it has also had two major screw ups the last two years that it has been run.

I want to go back to Vilfredo Pareto and the 80/20 rule. I looked at the numbers for this race and I estimate that the total revenue broke down accordingly:

Half Marathon = 55%
10k = 30%
5k = 15%

One thing to note was that the entry fee for the Half Marathon was only $5 more than the 5k/10k.

Ok, the first thing we need to ask is why do they have a 5k when it represents only 15% of the total revenue? The other issue was that the 5k was its own separate route, unlike the 10k and the Half which ran the same course but just finished at different times. Since the 5k is almost a second race, being held on a different course it creates a lot of headaches, from volunteers, etc. Vilfredo would say eliminate it! This seems like a no brainer if you ask me.

Focus on your bread and butter. Thus, I’ve recommended that they eliminate the 5k due to the 80/20 principle. I’m going to take that a step further and recommend that they eliminate the 10k as well. Yes, it represents 30% of their revenue, but I think if they truly focused all of their efforts on the Half Marathon they would increase the bottom line at a faster rate.

In general, I think that most races have an inelastic demand. A forty dollar entry fee for a Half Marathon is rather inexpensive in Colorado. I would go ahead and increase the registration fee to $50 for early entry and $60 for late/race day entry fee.

If the Heartland Marathon took my suggestion, and race registration stayed the same, their revenue would be around 70%-75% of what it was in 2007. Now, of course their costs are also going to decrease as they will only be managing one race as opposed to three. Thus, my guess is with this strategy profits will be down in years one and two (going forward) but if they can prove that they can run a well organized Half Marathon (something they have yet to do) the potential profits in the future may be higher.

I will not run this race in 2008, until I hear that Heartland Half Marathon can facilitate a proper race. Or, if Heartland wants to give me a free entry, to review their race in 2008, I may take them up on the offer.