Most serious runners consider big-box race series to be corporate giants that squash beloved local races, care little about the sport aspect of running, and charge absurdly high entry fees .

Mass-produced operations like , ,听补苍诲 聽aren鈥檛 perfect, but they鈥檝e energized the running world and helped increase race participation from 13 million finishers in 2010 to 19 million in 2013, according to the . That 46 percent increase is a boon to the sport that cannot be ignored.

First, let鈥檚 look at Competitor Group. The San Diego鈥揵ased company, which held its first event in its hometown in 1998, puts on races around the world, all with a rock 鈥檔鈥� roll theme.

The company鈥檚 full-steam-ahead operation is punctuated this fall with a in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn race announcement led to some predictable grumbling that Competitor Group got special treatment to put on a half with a cap of 17,500 participants when the city has capped smaller, local promoters鈥� half marathons at 1,500 runners.

It鈥檚 a valid complaint, compounded by the fear that whenever a Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll event comes to town, it will cannibalize existing independent races. But Competitor Group spokesperson Dan Cruz says they often have the opposite effect. 鈥淥ne in four participants who comes to our platform are running their first organized race at that distance,鈥� he says. 鈥淟ocal races benefit from that because we are bringing more athletes to the sport.鈥� In theory, the newbies who get hooked will seek out homegrown events the other 51 weeks of the year, though it鈥檚 impossible to quantify a direct uptick in local race participation due to Competitor Group.

The Color Run series, which launched in 2012 and has seen 4 million finishers to date, also claims to draw people into the sport who otherwise would鈥檝e stayed on the sidelines. 鈥淢ost of our runners have never run a 5K before, and our surveys tell us that they then go on to run in conventional races,鈥� says Color Run founder Travis Snyder.

That series created a new kind of running event where rainbow-colored powder and a post-race party replace race clocks and age-group awards.

At a conventional race, 鈥渋f you鈥檝e come with people, they have instantly flipped from being your friends to competitors,鈥� says Snyder. His series aims to turn the typically self-focused race experience into a shared one. 鈥淎t the Color Run, you鈥檝e asked the person next to you to take your picture and maybe told them they were wearing a cool tutu.鈥�

Another gripe about big brands is that they often lack character. The tradeoff is that they provide stability, which is welcome in the unregulated racing industry.

Over the past year, a string of smaller, newly established series鈥攊ncluding the , , , , , , and the Boulder Marathon鈥攗nexpectedly went belly up and, in most cases, left registered runners in the lurch for refunds.

鈥淲ith somebody like Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll, there is a sense of security that if I give them my money, the race will go off,鈥� says Rich Harshbarger, CEO of Running USA. Competitor Group canceled four races in 2014 but offered full refunds in each case. By virtue of being a big, highly recognizable brand, the company can鈥檛 refuse to refund entry fees in these situations, even if it loses money. It has to issue a mea culpa to maintain its customers鈥� trust.

Annual races offer a sense of tradition, but the downside is that racers will always be the guinea pigs whenever organizers try something new. A race series, however, can experiment with fresh ideas one month and implement them the next. 鈥淏ecause we run multiple Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll races around the world, we can test new concepts, and if the test works, we can expand it fairly quickly,鈥� says Cruz. 鈥淭here isn鈥檛 a race that we have where we are not testing something that could add value to our runners.鈥�

In Las Vegas this past November, Macklemore revved up runners at the Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll Marathon starting line and drones took overhead images of racers. Now Competitor Group is planning to incorporate a starting-line performer and the new photo tech into some of its 2015 races.

It鈥檚 a much bigger, and often more professional, production than you鈥檒l find in a small, hometown event. 鈥淭raditionally, someone鈥檚 cousin is driving the press truck,鈥� says race commentator and blogger , describing the all-hands-on-deck approach of many independent operators. 鈥淎 Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll race won鈥檛 be as particular as a hometown race, but it also won鈥檛 have an incorrectly measured course or have forgotten an aid station,鈥� says Reavis. This is career work for the employees at these mass producers, not a seasonal second job, and that can make a huge difference in execution.

One of the sharpest debates about national race series is that they do little to promote professional running. Granted, they have no obligation to provide prize money to top finishers鈥攖here is no rule that says a for-profit company has to support professional runners. Tough Mudder, however, pays out $60,000 in prize money for its World鈥檚 Toughest Mudder championship event, including $10,000 each to the male and female winners. Competitor Group eliminated its elite athlete program in 2013, only to feel blowback from die-hard fans. The company apologized for the PR misstep and reinstated prize money in 2014, with some events doling out up to $30,000 total, plus $1,000 bonuses to any male who breaks 2:18 and female who breaks 2:43 in the marathon, regardless of place. With the exception of the major U.S. marathons, these figures are competitive with other races of similar size.

According to Running USA, races that were part of a national series comprised approximately 20 percent of the top 100 largest U.S. races in 2013, meaning the market is still alive and well with independent events.

Ultimately, races are like ice cream. People don鈥檛 want to eat the same flavor all the time. Contrast is good. 鈥淭his sport now offers a full panoply of options,鈥� says Reavis. 鈥淚 think it should be win-win, not zero-sum.鈥�

The post Why Cookie-Cutter Corporate Races Are Good for Running appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Danner

In the world of backpacking, there鈥檚 a band of craftsmen who have been making boots by hand since the Nixon administration. Many of these artisans run businesses that have been in their family for up to five generations, and they鈥檒l spend weeks crafting the perfect pair of hikers. Here we show how a top-notch, $1,000 hiking boot is made.

Pete Limmer and Sons

Boots Produced Per Year: 200 to 225
鈥淚鈥檓 a fifth-generation boot maker, and I don鈥檛 think any of the men in my family were ever talked into the job,鈥� says Pete Limmer, who joined the family shoe business right out of high school in the 1970s.

Today, Limmer makes custom boots in batches, completing the equivalent of two-thirds of a boot in a day. Every part of the shoe is made by hand, and each product is tailored to the wearer鈥檚 foot shape and design preferences. Despite the $700 price tag per pair, Limmer has an 18-month backlog of orders. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been that way for the last 40 years,鈥� he says.

When it comes to construction, Limmer favors Norwegian-welted soles. 鈥淥nce you break in a Norwegian-welted boot, they’ll retain the shape of your foot forever,鈥� he says. He also sells boots that are 2 percent smaller than his customers鈥� actual foot. 鈥淭he idea is that the wearer will break in the boots for the final fit.”

From $700,

Esatto

Boots Produced Per Year: 110 pairs
Alex Kovalenko grew up in Ukraine where everyone in his family made shoes. When the family moved to the U.S. in 1998, Kovalenko found work as a bootmaker for Esatto, a company he now owns. (He鈥檚 one of three employees.)

鈥淥ur number-one priority is that our boots make your feet happy,鈥� says Kovalenko, who spends about 40 hours making each pair. The shoes are then priced as high as $899.

How can you tell the difference between a good boot and a great one? Kovalenko says you must look at the color. Generally, the darker the leather, the higher the quality, he says. Esatto uses Krymp leather from Norway, where the cows eat organic grass, says Kovalenko. 鈥淭hat results in thick leather that feels soft against your feet.鈥�

From $640,

Danner

Boots Produced Per Year: 250,000+ in 2014
Danner, founded in 1932, takes tradition seriously. So it helps to have a 43-year company vet overseeing hiking boot production.

Alfredo Contreras started making shoes as a 9-year-old boy in Guatemala. In 1972, he moved to Portland, Oregon, to start work at Danner.

Since then, he鈥檚 risen through the ranks, from leather cutter to pattern engineer. Along the way, he created the iconic Danner Mountain Light. 鈥淚t has a one-piece upper, which has fewer seams so you have less chance of water getting in or the seams needing to be repaired,鈥� he says. Another savvy invention of Contreras鈥�: the new Mountain Pass boot, a lightweight version of the Mountain Light that鈥檚 built with a supple leather collar to allow for instant break-in.

$330,

Vasque

Boots Produced Per Year: 500,000
In 1965, company founder William Sweasy brought the European-style hiking boot designs he’d seen in the Alps to the U.S. and began creating his own line. The first boot was called the Voyageur鈥攁s was the company until it was renamed after Colorado鈥檚 Fort Vasquez in 1971. Fifty years later, it takes Vasque about four hours to produce a completed boot in its Asian factories. 鈥淢ost of the of the boot-making process is done in one large factory line, but the Gore-Tex bootie where we create the 3-D sock that fits inside the boot is made in a different temperature-controlled room,鈥� says Vasque鈥檚 Director of Product Development Brian Hall.

There, each bootie is inflated and dunked in water to test for leaks. 鈥淚f you have the tiniest prick in the membrane, water will start coming in and you will know immediately,鈥� says Hall. Defects, however, are rare. 鈥淗aving watched the dunk tank process over the last 10 years, it is very rare to see a failure,鈥� says Hall.

From $129,

John Calden

Boots Produced Per Year: 36 to 40
John Calden came of age in San Francisco during the 1960s. He studied criminology at a local trade school and took a leather craft class because he thought it would be an easy A. He ended up falling in love with the topic, and ditched his original career plan to work at Mountain Traders after graduation before escaping to the Rocky Mountains. In 1978, he opened his namesake shop.

He begins his creations with a piece of tracing paper, a pencil, and the buyer鈥檚 foot to sketch out the foot鈥檚 outline. Then he uses measuring tape to find the circumference of the foot. Together, those two figures create the perfect fit that the boot is then molded around.

Calden鈥檚 boots are built to last. One of his first customers worked as a park ranger in Yellowstone when he bought his pair in 1978. That man still tromps around the mountains in his original pair: the only alternation Calden has made is to replace the soles. Though Calden focuses on function, he also knows fashion matters. 鈥淵ou have to make them as pretty as possible to charge $1,000 or so,鈥� he says.

From $1,000,

The post The Time-Consuming, Beautiful Art Behind Making a Custom Hiking Boot appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Late last month, Competitor Group Inc., the San Diego鈥揵ased parent company of the Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll Marathon series, was . The suit was filed in Missouri by plaintiff Yvette Joy Liebesman, who says she worked as a volunteer bike escort at the 2012 St. Louis Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll Half Marathon. Liebesman maintains that the race series, which is owned by private equity firm Calera Capital, uses its volunteers as unpaid labor to man water stations, give race directions, and serve as bike escorts for race participants. The suit looks to include anyone who volunteered to work at any of the 41 Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll races that took place across the United States over the past two years.

To succeed, the suit will need to prove that Competitor Group has violated the , which states that employees may not volunteer their services to for-profit private-sector employers. Liebesman鈥檚 lawyers argue that race volunteers aren鈥檛 just volunteering; they鈥檙e also serving as free labor for Competitor Group. Here鈥檚 why: The Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll races enlist charity partners and require them to provide at least 10 runners per event at the cost of $165 per racer. To raise money, these charities then set their own marked-up entry fees for runners who want to donate to the cause or enter a sold-out race. As part of the agreement, each charity also provides 75 people on race day to work at an aid station that can be branded with the charity鈥檚 initiatives. And this is the major sticking point in the suit.

鈥淭hese 鈥榲olunteers鈥� were recruited under the auspices that they were providing a community service for various charity groups, all of which pay Defendant, in one form or another, for the privilege of being an 鈥極fficial Charity,鈥欌�� reads the suit. 鈥淲hile these charity groups provide Defendant with the veneer of community service, in fact Defendant is exploiting a volunteer labor force to avoid paying for necessary labor, a privilege not afforded for-profit companies under the Fair Labor Standards Act (鈥楩LSA鈥�).鈥�

Liebesman, an associate professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law, is seeking to reclaim unpaid minimum wages for the work performed for everyone affected, plus monetary damages and attorney fees. According to the suit, the plaintiff believes the potential class of affected volunteers comprises approximately 1,000 individuals for each Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll race held in the United States in the past two years.

The firm representing her is tort specialist Simmons Hanly Conroy, whose lawyers for this case are based in Alton, Illinois, according to the court filing. Lawyers from Simmons Hanly Conroy were unavailable for an interview prior to press time.

While Liebesman has been , the case may have a powerful effect on for-profit races, says Phil Stewart, the president of Road Race Management Inc.

鈥淚f the suit were successful in a way that could be broadly interpreted, it could have a significant impact on volunteerism in the running industry from community events put on by local running stores through the large for-profits like Competitor Group,鈥� he says.

Stewart鈥檚 distinction about for-profit races is important. Some of the largest U.S. races, including the New York City Marathon, Peachtree Road Race 10K, and Lilac Bloomsday Run 12K, are operated by nonprofit running clubs and should not be affected by a ruling, whereas Run Disney and Ironman are owned by for-profit companies and could potentially be affected. (Ironman鈥檚 status is slightly more complicated because it has a nonprofit arm that oversees its charity program.)

, Competitor Group CEO David Abeles said, 鈥淎 lawsuit was recently filed against Competitor Group. We believe the allegations are completely baseless and we are confident that once the facts are analyzed it will be resolved quickly. It will not impact this weekend鈥檚 event in St. Louis, which will continue just as planned. While we cannot comment any further on the pending litigation, we are proud of the Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll Marathon鈥檚 four year history in St. Louis and we will continue to build upon our strong relationships with our community partners.鈥� (The 2014 St. Louis Rock 鈥檔鈥� Roll Marathon and Half Marathon will take place this weekend, almost two years to the day after the date Liebesman cited working in the suit.)

According to the court filings, Competitor Group has the opportunity to respond to the suit by October 24.

The post This Marathon Lawsuit May Shake Up the Running World appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.