Virtual Races Give Marathoners a Chance to Compete on Their Own

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Each August, in normal times, about 13,000 people run 7 miles up the Massachusetts coastline as part of the Falmouth Road Race. To kick off this year’s event, my wife held a watch in the air and yelled, “Go!” I took off running down a narrow trail where we live—in Munich. I’d always been skeptical of virtual races, which allow runners to participate from afar. Why pay someone a registration fee to run around your own neighborhood?

Dave McGillivray was skeptical, too. A race director for four decades, he stages annual competitions including Falmouth and the Boston Marathon. This was supposed to be his biggest year yet, with 35 events across the U.S. At age 66 he’d begun to consider selling his company, DMSE Sports, and retiring. “Then along came this pandemic,” he says. “It really fried this business.”

Virtual races have existed for years, offering those who couldn’t participate in an event in person, or preferred not to, the chance to run the specified distance on their own and upload their time. But the trend has exploded in 2020 because of Covid-19, with big, established races including the Boston and New York marathons going exclusively virtual. Organizers have responded by sending commemorative T-shirts and race medals to participants and trying to create a buzz on social media.

Getting marathons and other popular road races back is, of course, not a high priority for Covid-conscious public officials. Even with careful planning, it’s hard to imagine cramming together thousands of people who are breathing and sweating on one another for several hours (to say nothing of portable-toilet dynamics). The lack of big running events—and lack of clarity about when they’ll be back—has been a blow to many, not least the charities that raise lots of money through the sport. In 2019 the Falmouth race collected $5 million for nonprofits, while the Boston Marathon raised almost $40 million.

The proliferation of virtual races is helping soften that loss—and offering runners a way to capture some of the thrill of participating in such events. “I never imagined in my wildest dreams that runners would really gravitate to this,” McGillivray says. “But I can understand it now because, what else is there?”

About 18,000 people paid $50 each to participate in September’s virtual Boston Marathon. That’s about 40% fewer runners than took part in the 2019 race, when the fee was $200 for U.S. residents (and $250 for everyone else). For the virtual New York City Marathon, which can be done anytime from Oct. 17 to Nov. 1, people can pay as much as $175 for guaranteed entry into a future race along with perks, including a subscription to the training app Strava. The London Marathon will be held in a hybrid form on Oct. 4, with elite runners racing on a closed loop in St. James’s Park, while everyone else pays about £20 ($26) to complete the distance on their own.

In 1978, McGillivray quit his Boston office job and, over 80 days, ran across the U.S. to raise money for cancer research. Then he opened his own shoe store and put on road races to promote it, eventually deciding to focus on organizing the events. As Americans flocked to the sport, his company grew in good economic times and bad. “This business was bulletproof,” he says. Until this year. The virtual Falmouth race had about 10,000 participants and had raised about $1.7 million for charity as of early September. McGillivray expects his revenue to fall by two-thirds in 2020, torpedoing any notion of selling his business soon.

The hardest part, he says, is not knowing when he’ll be able to put on another massive event, or whether the enthusiasm for the virtual substitutes will last. He derives some comfort from the fact that more people seem to be running these days as they grow more health-conscious and wary of gyms. In August, in the lead-up to Falmouth, McGillivray filmed a promotional video for racers laying out the new reality. “Each one of you are your own race directors,” he says. “It’s up to you to decide how exactly you want this to go.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.