A Cause for Celebration: How fundraising groups are fuelling the growth in marathon race participation

Kevin Mackinnon explores the astounding growth of charity teams at major marathon races in Canada and around the world.

As dramatic as Grand’s finish was for that 2008 race, a year later she wasn’t at that finish line. She died in July 2009. While she didn’t make it to the race that year, her memory certainly did, thanks to “TEAM Sarah,” which began with four of her friends from university and grew to over 60 runners. Collectively the group raised over $16,000 through online and offline donations.

While the Scotiabank Charity Challenge and the London marathon provide hundreds of charities with the opportunity to raise money, the big players in the charity running scene are the Leukemia and Lymphoma’s Team in Training (TNT) and the Arthritis Foundation’s Joints in Motion. In 1998, the TNT program collaborated with a company called Elite Racing and started the first Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in San Diego. It’s hard to say which group helped the other more, but the end result has been the development of the hugely successful Rock ‘n’ Roll series, which now includes 13 marathons across the United States, and the TNT program, with more than 360,000 volunteer participants raising  $850 million to support blood cancer research and patient services for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

It’s easy to see the tangible benefits of being involved with one of the charity running programs – things like team gear and personalized training programs make preparation for a marathon much more attainable. Women have especially been drawn in, enjoying both the community support and camaraderie that has allowed them to achieve a challenge that previously seemed out of reach. According to Marc Roy, the owner of EventsOnline.ca, a company that handles entries for many Canadian marathons, women account for about 80 per cent of the charity team entrants to running and triathlon events.

So is there a downside to all of this? Charity runner participation has engendered more than a bit of controversy. Critics say that the increased cost of taking care of charity runners – for example, having to keep race courses open longer for slower athletes – inevitably gets passed down to the rest of the competitors in the field. Since so many charity competitors tend to be beginners, more experienced runners complain that these rookies display a lack of runner’s etiquette. There’s also a feeling amongst more serious marathon competitors that the charity runners aren’t truly involved in the sport – once they achieve their goal, they move on to another challenge or simply stop running altogether. A 2009 article in the Chicago Tribune cautions runners new to charity programs: “But while marathons can be rewarding and life changing, they can also be gruelling, unpleasant events, especially if you’re new to the sport. If you’re also fundraising – no easy feat – you might feel pressured to keep pushing with training when you shouldn’t. And some running coaches worry that the charities are more interested in raising money than in the health of the runners, a charge the charities deny.”

Those negative sentiments pale in comparison to the animosity that was generated in 2006 when a group of Canadian women from the group Jean’s Marines were caught cheating at the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC. The woman behind the program, Dr. Jean Marmoreo, advised some of the women in the group who weren’t likely to make the time cut-off at the 33K point of the marathon to take a shortcut that lopped off about 6.5K from the course. While Marmoreo claimed that other charities encouraged similar tactics, the group was banished from the Marine Corps Marathon for a year. The scandal serves as the ultimate lightning rod for critics of charity running.

The Jean’s Marines experience seems to have been a one-off affair, and after the initial criticism, charity teams have moved on from the furor and continued their business of raising money and providing the opportunity for some athletes to do what they never thought they could. No matter what the downsides might be, the incredible growth of running around the world is inevitably good for the sport. Then there’s the reality of all the good that’s being done thanks to the money being raised. While the Terry Fox Foundation puts on its own races rather than support teams, to date, the foundation has brought in more than $500 million for cancer research. At a time when charities were fighting for dollars and reporting declining numbers, last year’s Scotiabank Charity Challenge reached record numbers by pulling in almost $2.35 million.

Sarah Grand reached the finish line in Toronto in 4:44:32. On that day, she proved to herself that she could do what everyone told her she couldn’t, which is, in many ways, what marathon running is all about – testing yourself and seeing what you can achieve. Sarah Grand proved that she’s capable of a lot, as do the thousands of athletes who compete in running races on behalf of charities every year.

NEXT PAGE …the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training (TNT)

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