Cramped, Overcrowded Running Races

I am primarily a lone runner. I don't run in order to compete in races. Races to me are just a punctuation to my running hobby, nothing more, although I do tend to train up to an approaching event. So when I do compete in an occasional race, my reaction to it and how it is organized is bound to be different from others with a more competitive motive to their running. One of these differences is how I react to the number of participants in a race.

As such a solitary runner, I don't need that many accompanying runners to give myself the feeling of participating in a social, group event. For example, the two relatively low-key half-marathons I have recently run in had around 200 runners in each of them. But even with this small number, I found the races' starts to be overly cramped and constricting, even having to wait several seconds before even walking, then running very slowly (so as not to trip over anyone or be trampled), and then finally reaching the starting line. I ran my last half-marathon in well under 1 hour and 56 minutes, but left with the "official" time of 1:56:07, some of that time patiently spent just waiting to get to the starting line! And even after that was accomplished, I spent the first mile or two boxed in by slower runners. So who knows how fast I could have run had the field been much smaller. And the idea of lining up near the front at the race's beginning, which I had done before in earlier 5K races, doesn't work either: many slow runners seem to take a perverse pleasure in maneuvering themselves ahead of others at the beginning, even though they should well know that they are just impeding faster runners.

But having said all that, I still think that these races were worth running. And then I read about an upcoming March 15K (9.3 miles) race in Jacksonville: 10,000 runners are expected! Still, that's nowhere near the 24,000 who "raced" in the Walt Disney World marathon. Why run in such an overwhelmingly crowded event? I pondered about this a little while, and then it hit me...

It's the mob appeal phenomenon that one sees on Times Square at New Years Eve, rock concerts, major sporting events, mass protest demonstrations, etc. It is as if, after a certain threshold has been passed, the appeal of these events is not the nature of the event itself but rather in being in the midst of the gathering of a very large mass of people in close quarters pursuing the same agenda. That's why people will continue to sign up for overcrowded races that are a complete joke to run in.

The only reason I will ever participate in one of those mega-races with its thousands of runners is to play the role of tourist and engage in a lot of sight-seeing during my run. Otherwise, I think that I'll just stick to my more enjoyable (and much less expensive) jaunts around my neighborhood and vicinity...