Rising Cost of Marathon Running

The Nairobi marathon registration has been extended for another 2 weeks. The organisers in their paid advertisement tell us its due to great public demand. They have so far registered 7000 runners this was far short of their target of 15,000 marathon runners.

Nairobi marathon raises entry fee

Its obvious the low registration is due to the increase in registration fee by 300 percent. Just when the marathon was becoming common among the ordinary people the organise made an ill adviced move of raising the participation fee.

Marathons have become big business around the world. The sponsors of the marathon are a bank, and with banks in Kenya making record profit,thanks to charging high interest rates to borrowers and paying almost zero interest to savers. If you are a saver and you are lucky your savings earn some interest most of it is swallowed by their many fees, ledger fees, withdrawal fee even weird cash deposit fee. Can you believe that! you pay to bank your money with them!

Stuff they forgot

While I have no problem paying the registration fee many runners I have met have told me the number one reason for not participating, apart from poor personal form, is high entry fee.  What organisers did not keep in mind when raising the fee is that in addition to registration fee runners meet the cost of training, accommodation, travel and eating.

Marathon Business

As marathon running become’s big business around the world I hope the organisers will not forget the plight of marathon runners. Without the runners you cant have a marathon. If they make it financially hard for runners to participate the marathon runners will vote with their feet and walk away. We need each other.

Nairobi Marathon route

The route for Standard chartered marathon has been published. The route and the format is the same as last year. This will dissapoint many including me who expected a change of format. Those who are doing the full marathon will be expected to run a circuit twice.

 I would have prefered a single journey.I remember many runners giving up last year. The distance from the start to the turning point that returns a marathon runner to the start is 13 mile long. Expecting the marathon runners to do the most difficult part twice is asking too much of them.