Who owns a race?

The course is certified- not the race.

To us, the course number is the name of the course, and as long as the race is run over that course, it shouldn't make any difference to us or the record keepers.

As much as anything else, this is an intellectual property issue. The course really belongs to whoever first had it measured and certified- much like a patent or a copyright. If another organization wants to conduct an event over the course, it should obtain permission from the organization who expended the effort to get the course certified.

Should we, as RRTC, enforce this? I'm certainly not interested...

I agree w/ Jay. Gene's Sunshine 5K is certified as AZ09001GAN - that number, rather than the course name, should be listed on the entry form, as per the wording on the cert:

Notice to Race Director
Use this Certification Code in all public
announcements relating to your race.

If I decide I want to put on Jim's Run for Snowshovels on the same course, I should simply us the same cert. number on my race apps.

Now, as to whether I owe Gene anything for having the course measured . . .

I don't think renaming a certified course should be done. We have the course number ID. Let the new race use it and not pretend they did the heavy lifting of getting it measured and certified.

I agree on the "no renaming the certificate" front. Race names change all the time. We have a race that's been the Coors Silverbullet 5K, the Planters Fitnuts 5K, The Beefy-T 5K, and now the Beat the Heat 5K.

Tell the RD's the certificate number is for real, the name is reference only.

We had this discussion about a year ago, in this forum.

If the course is in a public venue, such as our City Park in Denver, anyone can use the course. Yes, BKB paid to have the 5k course certified, but Joe's Events uses it, also. If someone calls me (as the measurer), I ask them to send some money to BKB (or whoever paid for the certification) as a courtesy. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

Most courses in our city parks are used by multiple parties. Normally, whomever paid for it uses it often enough that the cost per use is so little, that they don't care about protecting exclusivity rights. In reality, they don't have exclusive rights to a course on public property.

I will create a new map for an entity that wants to use the same course, using the same cert number, but for a fee. I set the fee high enough that most races don't follow-through. That is the intent of the high fee. If they do pay me, I send the original RD some of it. Rarely happens, though.

Nothing gets sent in to USATF, and if someone looks for the cert number on the USATF site, they find the original race name. I explain all of that to the race director. They don't care, as long as they have a map that has their name on it, showing the cert number, which they distribute to volunteers and media.

Bottom line, the course belongs to no one, if it is run on public property. Courtesy indicates that a fee should be sent to whomever initially had the course certified, but that cannot be required.

True. As long as the cert number is there I could care less. If I were a race organizer wanting to use a course cert. for someone else's race, it would be good business to either send them a few $ as a way of thanks, or recognize their contribution somehow.

In this city we get a lot of re-use, most of it in parks. I agree it's the course that is certified, and anyone can use it, just refer to it by it's certification number.

When I name courses I name them after the location and not the race de jour. It just makes more sense.

We only have so many good race locations and because of the extraordinary cost of police it makes senses for many local races to use the local parks. Therefore re-use of race course in the parks is common throughout the year because our parks are not that big so there is only so many ways you can fit a race into them.

I strongly advocate for reusing existing courses that are tried and true. Volunteers and runners know the setup, know where to park, and most of the kinks of that location have been figured out.

I would prefer people re-use the existing course instead of waking another one down right on top of it. We have one park with no less than 4 one mile marks all within 160 feet of each other. That they are that spread apart is surprising because I believe they all use the same start line.

BUT it really burns my toast when I figure out an amazing new course that winds through a part of town not used before, and the event is a smashing success, and after we have done the event for a couple of years, grown the numbers to about 1500, and got voted best local race..... 'the one who shall not be named' finds a group who will do an almost identical event, the month before, and lays a course right on top of mine, although it is true that his finish is a little different.

I even have a unique twist to that race in that a 5 Mile and 5K start on the same course but 17 minutes apart. The second reuses the first mile, then goes a different rout, only to merge into the stream of runners from the first race and they all run back together for the last 1.5 miles. One of my best works yet. It took a lot of work to figure out how to use that part of town; how to interlock to simultaneous races with different distances an identical finish lines; and make it work with hundreds and hundreds of people in both races at the same time.

So after first pinching the 5K course almost identically, they have now fully copied the event, by adding a 10K that is identical to my 5M course, except for a little more distance at the outer end. If you saw the maps you would think one was an updated version of the other.

The two simultaneous races that are timed to merge smoothly into one is one of the many features that make the event unique. It seems they are now going to copy that too.

This ain't in a park where you only have a few roads to select from. This is in a city where you have to work very hard to stay on the same twisting and turning route. My course has 10 turns and three bridges in the first 2.5 miles, theirs matches stride for stride.

It's not just that event, but now almost every major local race our club does now has a shadow event in the proceeding month, in the same park or location, with an identical distance or almost identical event. I know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but it is getting ridiculous.

Then, then some of the copy cat events have the gall to turn around and suggest we are copying them....

So my prayer is that if people want to run a duplicate event on one of my courses, or a copy of one of our clubs events, please schedule it for six months earlier or later, not the month before. I know you are attempting to steal our thunder and our runners but this sort of malarkey hurts both races.

Sounds like someone has an ethics problem. Might be time to have a beer with them, and get to know them. Maybe once they know that you are on to them, they will change their ways. Right!

But, you may be able to convince them to do it 6 months apart.

Do they certify their courses? If not, that may be an angle you can publicize, without naming names.

Good luck instilling ethics in them.

All of this has allowed a good dialog and thus created a policy for us at RRTC to use. It is as follows:

Name Change requests of a Certified Course (Jan. 20, 2009)

There are three situations to address.
1. The original race asks for a name change and a new Certificate.
2. A new group secures written permission from the old group to change the course name and have their own Certificate.
3. Another group wants to use this course and request their own Certificate.

For #1 & #2 they will follow this procedure
They should produce the original Certificate (with the map on back) and resubmit a new map with their name (the course ID Number should be removed) to the Regional Certifier along with a $10 fee. Then the Regional Certifier will issue a new Certificate ID Number that will start with the year the original course was certified followed by a 9. For example the original ID# was AZ06001GAN, hence the new ID# would be AZ06901GAN. The new certificate would be submitted to the Vice Chair with the normal fee. The old course would not be taken off the list of Certified Courses, but the new course would now be listed.

For #3 they will follow this procedure
It must be remeasured and follow the normal protocol.


However, the RRTC encourages generic Names for races and discourage those to change the name. Please note anyone can use another’s Certified Course as all the RRTC did was Certify the course.