2004 Denver Marathon

City Denies Denver Marathon - Everybody Loses...
by John Elliott

Editor's note: This article is written on the day that the Denver Marathon was to be held - a day after the race director stood at the site of packet pick-up and told runners that the race was not going to be held as scheduled. We've received a number of emails and reviews complaining about the race director - rightly so, but the city of Denver held the keys to the race and made the decision to not allow it to continue - that was the travesty.

Shame On You, Denver
After the initial shock of the cancelation and feeling the anger directed at the race director, we want to turn around and say "Shame on You" to the city of Denver. At the last moment, the city faced a choice to let a marathon be held in its city today or to deny it - they chose the latter course and everyone loses by their decision.

Big and Small Marathons - it's not easy
Many who read this article will have only seen or experienced one of the major marathons - the ones with thousands of runners. Those events manage superb spectacles put together with the luxury of full-time staff, dozens of dedicated volunteer committee members, personnel support from sponsors and major financial backing. These organizations run as smoothly as a big business - and the issues encountered are easily overcome.

In the USA alone, there are more than 200 marathons that are, truth be told, organized and put together by a single individual (with some help from family and friends). Regardless of the number of participants who will participate in a race, all marathon organizers face almost the same set of challenges. Whether there are 200 or 20,000 runners, a race organizer must determine and permit a 26.2 mile course; organize water stations and other raceday services; create packets; design and purchase medals, bibs and shirts; produce advertising and promotional materials; find sponsors; coordinate police and city services; and this is only the smallest part of the checklist. Imagine that you, as a single individual, have a dream and go along the path to create a marathon in your city - it's not easy. And the cost and difficulty of putting on a marathon increases with the size of the city and urban nature of a course (it's just more expensive to shut down city streets than to put on a race on trails, for example).

In Denver, we have the latter situation - a single individual trying to develop a marathon. As every other small/medium-sized marathon has found out (and all race organizers reading this will recognize the scenario), finding sponsorship money is not easy and runners fees pay only a portion of the cost of a marathon. Despite this, and without exceptional personal resources, Trujillo continued to plug along and put together a Denver Marathon - albeit (according to reviews), a race that could be better (but can't they all)? From year one it was touch and go, and funds to put on the race were sometimes not collected until after the race was run - particularly as most runners seem to wait until the last minute to sign up for a race (making it hard to plan), and those funds do not clear for a race (or even arrive in their bank account) until after the race has completed. For Denver, one-third of its registrations were received in the week before the race (not that atypical) and as a courtesy, the event's online registration company (MarathonGuide.com, the best online registration company there is - sorry for the plug) wired those funds to the race on Friday so they would be available as quickly as possible.

The City Denies The Race
On Friday afternoon, Trujillo entered the Manager of Safety's Office in the Downtown Police Station with a cashier's check in an amount in excess of $20,000 to give to the city of Denver as partial payment for police coverage for the marathon. The amount on the check was for more than 75% of the bill presented to the marathon by the city, not the full amount, and with the check Trujillo had his word that the remaining funds would be paid within the next day, as soon as funds cleared in his bank account (including the registration fees wired by us). In 2002 and 2003, the city had accepted partial payment on the Friday before the race and the remainder just after the race and Trujillo expected the same treatment this year. But this year the bureaucrat on duty said that without full payment beforehand, the race could not take place. Needless to say, this was not the expected outcome of Trujillo's visit to the city - and as it was the Friday afternoon before the event, there was little that could be done except cancel the race.

Who is to Blame?
Clearly a number of participants are to blame that the Denver Marathon will not take place on October 10, 2004.

• Race Director Trujillo: Absolutely, the first blame goes to Chuck Trujillo and regardless of anything else, the buck stops with the race organizer. In this case Trujillo waited until the last minute to make his payment to the city and took for granted that the city would accept partial payment with the remainder in a day or two. This turned out to be a major mistake. As for being underfunded - we can't blame the race for that, it's a fact of life for most.
• Not to blame, but we'll point this out anyway... Runners... It's a pet problem of marathons that it's difficult to plan because runners wait until the last minute to sign up. True, runners are charged a penalty for late registration, but how can a marathon know how many medals or shirts to order if they don't know how many runners they will have until the last minute? Marathons also do need the money earlier, not later and in this case, had more runners registered early, then the marathon would have had enough money for that final check - too bad.
• The City of Denver: The biggest blame falls here. In our opinion there was no excuse for the police department to decide that the race should not take place. Based on four years of experience, they knew that they would receive their money. They were aware of the fact that over a thousand runners would be left high and dry by their decision. They knew that local businesses would not get the revenue that would be generated from the race. They should also know that there will be a negative stigma surrounding the city of Denver and running for years going forward. Not to mention that the police department wouldn't get fees for its work protecting the race (every other city we know enjoys finding overtime for its police officers...).

  The Denver Marathon had brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars to the city over its years and was a good corporate citizen so at least some leeway should have been afforded to the race - if not for the sake of race organizers, then for the sake of the citizens of Denver who had signed up to participate.

Trujillo is to be Praised.
Admittedly, there are plenty of people who are rightly angry with Chuck Trujillo at the moment, but at the same time he should be praised for standing up to the blame (and we at MarathonGuide.com like pointing out the contrary position in any case):

• Pursuing a Marathon Dream: Chuck Trujillo had a dream of creating a marathon and put in extraordinary effort to make it happen. For four years, a marathon took place in Denver through the efforts of one person. That deserves praise.
• Standing Up: On Saturday, Trujillo stood at the location where packet pickup was to take place and greeted runners with the bad news, he did not run and hide. Others might have put up a note on a wall, turned off their phone and hidden from what must have been a tough situation dealing with angry runners. The fact that Trujillo stood up and faced the runners deserves praise.
• Providing Refunds: Despite serious financial hardship, Trujillo wrote checks at packet pickup to those who requested a refund and immediately sent out an email on Saturday evening offering refunds to registrants of the Denver Marathon. That was the honorable thing to do and should be praised.

Who Loses?
The loss runs deep and affects many:

• Race Director Trujillo: The biggest loser is Chuck Trujillo and our heart goes out to him. After years of effort and following protocol, his race was not allowed to take place. The financial consequences are devastating as expenses that have already been paid are gone and as he has offered to refund runner fees. What had been a break-even event in past years will be a major financial loss. Even further, his dream of building a marathon in Denver has been crushed.
• The Runners: Runners who had trained for the Denver Marathon are affected and that is a shame. Local runners will be lucky enough to add this to their arsenal of stories and hopefully will find an alternative race. Those who traveled to Denver and paid for airfare and hotel rooms will have
• The City of Denver: Financially, the city of Denver loses. For what it has told the world about its support of running, Denver loses. That it does not support civic events is a tragedy, and that it chose a course of action that means runners will forever question the city's commitment to them was shortsighted. How easy it would have been for the city to give the go-ahead to the race - why they didn't remains a mystery.

The Bottom Line
After the smoke clears and the blaming and finger pointing subsides, we should all realize that the entire running community has lost by the decision of the city of Denver to not agree to provide police for the 2004 Denver Marathon on October 10, 2004. We hope to learn more about the motivation behind this shortsighted decision - and we feel terrible for all involved.

Trujillo hopes that the 2004 event can still take place at a later date - we will see if that can happen.