I wrote this as a Guest Editorial for Marathon & Beyond. It appeared in the Jan/Feb 2011 Issue.
“I couldn’t run the marathon that I had registered for, and transfers weren’t allowed, so I gave my entry to a friend. I didn’t know he would also wear my timing chip. He placed first among the women in my age group using my name! I felt very bad for the other women in the age group, and tried to call the RD to let him know. It was too late; they’d already given out the awards and published the results.”
More and more marathons and ultras are filling up, and they’re doing so earlier and earlier. This puts a constraint on runners who would prefer to register for events later rather than sooner. Several consequences emerge from this pattern:
Race organizers are happy because they don’t need to worry as much about making ends meet. They have all the registered runners they can handle. Moreover, once a race sells out, it’s likely to do so again the following year, and probably even earlier.
Those concerned with the growth of our sport are also pleased to witness another indicator of its overall health.
As noted, runners need to plan their events earlier and more carefully.
Runners may be closed out of an event they’d counted on running. This may cause them to:
Find another race.
Bandit the race.
Use someone else’s registration, when available.
Runners who register early enough may find that they’ve paid for an event they cannot attend due to injury, lack of training, or scheduling conflict. These runners may:
Lose out on their entry fee, unless the race has a refund policy or lets them defer it to a future year.
Sell or give their entry to another runner. (See 4c above.) This may or may not be allowed by race organizers.
Some of the increase in marathon participants is being mitigated by the number of new marathons and ultras inaugurated each year. The proliferation of races is another sign of our sport’s healthy growth. One option available to those left out of events of their choice is to run a new and unfilled event, or to pick a smaller, unfilled event, because many smaller events don’t fill up.
Race organizers recognize that there must be restrictions and rules for events such as marathons and ultras. These are sometimes imposed by limited availability of resources. What obligation do participants have to comply with those rules? Is there anything inherently wrong with banditing or running a race as someone else? How about running with headphones or a pacer in events where these are disallowed?
A little old lady pays her attorney fee with cash in an envelope. After she leaves, the lawyer discovers that she has overpaid by accidentally including an extra $100 bill. He now faces an ethical dilemma: should he tell his partner?
This little lawyer joke summarizes just about everything I knew about ethics before I began thinking about the questions noted above. There is, first of all, the question of legality. Is it legal or illegal to deliberately disobey event rules? Secondly, even if such things are legal, are they ethical?
Legality
There are some instances where the rules that are established in marathons are clearly there for legal reasons. One obvious instance is the waiver plus signature area on the entry form, or its electronic equivalent for online registrations. Here you, the runner, usually agree to release all claims and liabilities against the event and/or the race organizers. Participants understand the need for such agreements; without them, the potential for lawsuits would likely make any race events impossible to put on.
A clear instance where banditing or running as another person is illegal is when crossing an international border. This occurs during the Detroit Free Press Marathon and the Niagara Falls International Marathon. Runners must show their passports as they check in, and they must present their bib numbers by wearing them in front as they cross the frontier from the US to Canada and from Canada to the US Regarding the question of giving an entry to a friend, the Detroit race information states, “Absolutely not! There are no refunds or transfers allowed. Because of the international route, all participants must be approved by the Bureau of Customs and Border Patrol. Failure to observe Homeland Security measures can result in criminal charges.”
If an event has legal permission from local authorities to close roads to any other traffic, does this mean that only registered participants are allowed on the course? Does this make banditing illegal? Here is where the question of legality becomes murky.
The Towpath Marathon in Ohio is run almost entirely on the Towpath Trail within Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The park service erects signs indicating that the Towpath Trail is closed to all but registered runners and race officials during the event. This makes it clear that unauthorized users of the Towpath would violate a park service rule.
Bandits have been a common occurrence at the Boston Marathon for many years. It’s been said that race organizers and police “look the other way.” This doesn’t make running the race legal for the bandits. Except in instances where homeland security is an issue, the question of legality boils down to practicality. Police or park officials may have the legal authority to (try to) remove bandits, pacers, and others who don’t belong on a closed course. Whether they would consider it worthwhile to expend the time and effort to do so is quite another matter.
Ethics 101
Putting aside the legal questions, let’s examine some ethical questions that come to light when runners don’t follow the rules established for a running event. Although I was not a philosophy major, I am nonetheless fascinated by the subject of ethics. My research has yielded the following:
Ethics may be defined as “the study of morality,” those systems that describe our views about justice, right and wrong, and good and bad. (Source: Various sources, including http://www.wikipedia.org/.)
One branch of ethics is called normative ethics, which attempts to explain the determination of right and wrong actions. For many, religious beliefs help determine the right thing to do. But regardless of religion, are there universal right and wrong actions? One theory related to normative ethics is called deontology. This theory, espoused by Immanuel Kant and others, makes the argument that decisions should be made considering both one's duties and also the rights of others. One should question: “What will happen to me as well as to others if I do this?” Another normative ethics theory, consequentialism, argues that the morality of an action is contingent on the action's outcome or result. Do the ends justify the means? Taken together, these theories help describe our decisions and actions in various situations.
Whether we recognize it or not, we face ethical questions every day. Should I exceed the speed limit? Return change given incorrectly in my favor back to a store? Cheat, even a little bit, on my taxes? Even in situations such as these, we ought to ask ourselves: If I do something to benefit myself, will anyone else be hurt by my action? Secondly, Even if no one is immediately hurt, what if everybody did this? In other words, what are the consequences? If no one paid taxes, where would our government get income with which to defend our shores, pave our roads, and educate our children? If drivers didn’t follow basic traffic laws, wouldn’t there be a lot more accidents?
Next, let's examine the ethical consequences in some specific cases where runners do not follow certain race rules.
Banditing: The practice of running in a race which a runner hasn’t registered or paid for has been around for decades. Reasons for banditing include being closed out of an event, inability to qualify for a race, and perception that the race fee is too high. The practice occurs more at some events than others, and has been a virtual tradition at the Boston Marathon. The few bandits who speak up, often on Internet discussion forums, usually give justifications like those previously noted as reasons for banditing. They often assert that their practice doesn’t hurt anyone. They may argue that they start in the back, don’t use race amenities such as aid stations, and don’t cross the finish line so as not to interfere with the results although some bandits do these things as well. They almost always resent being branded as thieves. “Who am I stealing from?” they ask.
Registered runners react to bandits with emotions ranging from indifference to intolerance. Their reaction tends to be more on the negative side toward bandits who get in their way, are seen using race resources, or who muddle the results. Race officials tend to be a little less forgiving. Mark Remy of Runner's World’s “RW Daily” blog suggests that perhaps the problem would diminish if we didn’t use such a cool sounding name as “bandit.” He suggests some more emotionally tainted terms, such as “leeches”, “parasites”, and “freeloaders”.
The rationalizations fascinate me. I’ve even heard one bandit state that he “hates” race organizing committees, and bandits races in order to spite them.
Swapping Registration and Bib Numbers: Take a look at the table Number of Marathon Finishers by Year in the sidebar. That’s a whole lot of marathon runners. With this many people, there are bound to be many situations where folks find themselves registered, but for one reason or another are unable to run. Other runners who were closed out of events as more are every year may be able to benefit by finding the registrants who can’t make the scene. In a more perfect world, race officials would be able to allow runners to swap registrations with one another, or defer their registrations to a future year. In fact, some do allow such things. The reason many do not allow them is because of the effort required. A large event may require one or more volunteers dedicated entirely to registration swaps. Many race directors feel that these volunteers could be used much more effectively at different jobs.
Some runners feel that swapping registrations, even if specifically disallowed, is not ethically wrong. After all, someone paid for that bib number, and someone is running with it. Why should race officials care if it happens to be a different person?
Another consideration is that although the number of runners in virtually every event is growing, the number of events is growing as well. Running USA notes that there were a record five inaugural marathons with more than one thousand runners each in 2009. These are just the medium to large ones. In fact, runners closed out of marathons may have their best chance of getting in at a smaller event.
Swapping of numbers is arguably growing much faster than banditing. We could unearth no hard data, but anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. The practice is also arguably more defensible than banditing, since someone did indeed pay the fee. Yet when done outside the rules, it is still a violation. There are obvious medical and emergency concerns that argue against the practice. Importantly, race results become skewed when one person claiming to be another crosses the line. But as we’ve seen, those who do swap numbers without telling officials often see nothing wrong or unethical with doing so.
Some races expect a certain percentage of DNS’s (Did Not Start), and this is taken into account when creating the price structure for the race. The ones who do not show up and do not use what they have paid for help to keep the cost down for those who do.
Pacing: Pacing is allowed in some ultras, but generally not in most marathons. In many cases, it isn’t even mentioned in the rules. It is interesting that paid professional “rabbits” are recruited for many high-level track meets and some major road marathons, yet all pacing is banned from most championship level events. Whom does pacing help and hurt? Is it ethical to have a pacer?
Course-Cutting: It’s surprising that course-cutting is even an issue since almost everyone views it as cheating. An incident arose a few years ago, however, that came to the attention of many who are interested in the culture of marathoning. At the 2005 Marine Corps Marathon, the coach of some charity runners advised his group to cut about four miles off the course so that they would be able to receive finishers’ medals by crossing the finish line within the seven-hour deadline. When he learned of the incident, race director Rick Nealis disqualified those involved. What is interesting to me is not the question of whether to DQ the runners; that decision, in my mind, was a no-brainer. What fascinates me is the thought process that led to the decision to cut the course in the first place. It must be something like, “I trained and paid my money, and I put forth some amount of effort, so I want to cross that finish line and acquire my medal.” Never mind that the accomplishment isn’t quite up to the standard that everyone else had to achieve in order to earn their medals. Like banditing, the justification for this one is difficult to comprehend.
Headphones: Like pacing, the use of headphones is disallowed in some events for various reasons. Like pacing, the use of headphones may indeed provide an advantage to the user.
Applying Ethics (What You Should Do)
Some of our most revered historical figures became heroic precisely because they broke rules. Certain laws were perceived as unfair, unjust or excessive; to break such a law was considered to be an act of the highest ethical behavior. How should runners who disobey race regulations be viewed? Are they heroes, criminals, or something in between?
A perusal of several blogs, including Caitlin Boyle’s “A Healthy Tipping Point,” reveals a wide range of opinions about some of these issues, but there appears to be a general consensus: banditing is something akin to stealing, and therefore is not acceptable behavior; but other rule violations, such as unauthorized number swapping, are okay, with a few caveats. A search of Web sites such as eBay and Craigslist shows bib numbers for various marathons for sale. My query is this: Does it even occur to the buyers and sellers to ask the question whether such a practice is ethical?
Most races do a commendable job of being explicit about their rules. For example, the Los Angeles Marathon Web site states, “All entry fees are non-refundable and non-transferable.” The Chevron Houston Marathon and the ING New York City Marathon allow registered runners who are unable to participate to receive a guarantee of entry for the following year, but do not allow transfers between runners. Most other regulations at these and other events are similarly clear. Runners who take even a little time to study the rules should get a clear idea of what is expected of them by the race organizers.
My take on all this? First of all, I’m a race director, so I may have some bias about ethics. I’ll say this nevertheless: Ask yourself whether playing outside the regulations is ethical. I would hope that if you do so, you would generally come down on the side of playing by the stated rules. If you don’t like the rules for any reason, you have several options.
Abide by the rules as they stand. You may not like some aspects of a race; perhaps other factors make running it worthwhile anyhow.
Work to change the rules. You can even try to contact race officials and offer to help them with transferring registrations between runners. Understand, however, that in many cases the regulations were put in place by runners and/or organizers who want the best for everyone; there just may be a good reason for them being the way they are.
Apply some ethical behavior: vote with your feet and pick a race where you can live with the rules.
SIDEBAR
Number of Marathon Finishers by Year
Year Estimated US Marathon Finisher Total
1976 |
25,000 |
1980 |
143,000 |
1990 |
224,000 |
1995 |
293,000 |
2000 |
353,000 |
2004 |
386,000 |
2005 |
395,000 |
2006 |
410,000 |
2007 |
412,000 |
2008 |
425,000 |
2009 |
467,000 |
|
(record total) |
Courtesy of Running USA (http://www.runningusa.org).
INCLUDE PHOTO OF A MARATHON START
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