Burning Race Entry Fees or “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now”

Burning Race Entry Fees or “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now”

For those of you long-term runners who aren’t procrastinators, you may have had the experience of registering and paying for a race that ultimately you don’t get to run.

Let’s face it. Life Happens. Shit happens. SHIFTS Happen. And, as the saying goes “the best laid plans….”

I’ve considered myself a runner now for over 20 years. My first race EVER that I signed up, paid for, and ran was the Old Style Chicago Marathon in October of 1988. Since then, I’ve run countless races of all distances, in many parts of the world at many times and had many amazing, and some not-so-amazing experiences.

And, it seems like I’ve had my share of race fees that were spent without me toeing the start, let alone crossing the finish line of said event.

Personally, there is nothing that burns my bacon more than that.

I love to run races. It’s what I do for fun, recreation and health. And those of you who have read my blogs know, it’s a Taurean experience for me, whereby I savor the distance, weather, sights along the way and have incredible experiences with the people that I meet at each event. I like to plan my races well in advance, picking events for the time of year, location, and many times simply because I’ve enjoyed them before. I like to consider the recommendations of others who have done races that I haven’t done. And again….I just enjoy going to running events.

So, usually I mark things on my calendar, look at sign up dates and send in my “early registration fees’ well in advance of a race. Then, I promptly forget about it until close to the event when I go onto my email, print the Active.com receipt and head off to have my fun.

On many occasions, and it seems like more in the last year, I’ve been sidelined by sudden changes of plans and in some cases not-so sudden changes (like INJURIES) that don’t allow me to go to the event. And, unfortunately, many times these are big dollar events, like Marathons.


The first time it happened to me was early in my running career in 1991. I was getting ready to run my fourth Marathon and decided that, instead of running the Chicago Marathon for the fourth time in a row, I would run my Second Home Town Milwaukee’s Lakefront Marathon. Some time in July or August, I sent away for an entry form (this was back in the days before the earth cooled – Dinosaurs were still walking around – the Internet might have been a vague rumor but I sure hadn’t heard of it) I paid for the early bird registration and sent my check and application fee in, signed on the line that stated “Strictly NO Refunds” and went merrily about my training for the October event. Late in August, a hard-core running friend of mine who had moved to Minneapolis earlier in the year popped in on me at my Wisconsin home. Several beers later, (yes I was a beer drinker back then!) he reminded me of yet another drunken promise I had made to him about running the Twin Cities Marathon with him that fall, and he had brought an application for me to make good on my promise. I noted that the date was the week before Milwaukee’s Lakefront and thought “Damn!” (Back then, it would have been unheard of for me to attempt doing more than one marathon in a year – Oh wasted Youth!)I protested to him about my already-paid-for entry fee to no avail. As my resolve weakened I found myself filling out the new entry form and sending in yet another check, consoling myself with the thought that “there was always next year”…

Little did I know that over a decade would pass before I actually got to run Milwaukee – and also that this was the start of a multiple spree of Registering-for-a-hometown-race-and-then-not-running-it.

As it turns out, I did run Twin Cities – stellarly, I may add, with my all-time personal best time of 3:20. As it turned out, this was the closest I came to a Boston Qualifier, but several factors worked against me including the weather that day (windy, low 30’s and snow) my health (I was suffering from Strep Throat as it turned out) the course (Twin Cities is “rolling” and the miles 20 to 26 are a grueling, never-ending-ever-increasing incline) and also I actually went out too slow, of all things, not getting to my pace until about mile 12. By then the damage was done, but still and all, I wish I could get that time back.

So life went on and that next summer I found myself burning a race fee for the Downers Grove 10 Miler. Downers Grove was my home town in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. This was a regular race for me, one I did every year, and I usually turned the application around the same day I got it in the mail. The night before the race, I suddenly found myself limping with some out-of-nowhere severe foot pain. I never did find out what it was (my erstwhile un-medical expert friends suggested everything from Plantar Facitous to GOUT of all things) but it was clear that there was no way I could WALK without pain, let alone blast the dual-loop never-ending hills of this my other hometown’s annual 10 mile race. Early the next morning, I limped to the race registration area, got the shirt anyway (which I never wore, of course but I had Paid for months previously) and got in the car and headed to the Lake to console myself with some waterfront time while the foot healed from whatever it was that caused me to not be able to go that day.

Time went on and there were some other not-so memorable race misses. I completed a total of 10 marathons, including another repeat at the Twin Cities, and then Chicago each year from 1993 to 1997. The big Kahuna for me came late in 1997, when I started receiving advertisements for the First Annual Rock and Roll Marathon in San Diego, California. There was a ton of hoopla around the race with a big write up in Runners World, headliner musical acts, lots of premiums, cool shirts and all kinds of swag. A Once In a Lifetime Opportunity! Also, a deeply discounted Early Entry Fee. So, six months prior to the event, I got online with my credit card and signed up for the May event.

In January 1998, five days after the New Year (and about five months before the Rock-n-Roll), I was standing in my kitchen late in the evening. I turned to the right to put something on the counter and seconds later found myself on the kitchen floor with severe back pain. You could almost hear the discs pop as I hit the floor. Immediately afterward, I couldn’t walk without severe pain and numbness in my left leg. It was tough to even get to across the room, let alone contemplate any running. Six weeks, several doctor and chiropractor visits plus and MRI later, I had lower back surgery to repair a severely burst disc. At the time, I heard the infamous words from my otherwise very excellent Neurosurgeon “You’ve probably run your last marathon…”


Post-Surgery, in keeping with my belief at the time that Doctors Are Always Right, I abandoned my San Diego Rock and Roll dreams and concentrated instead on learning to walk again, doing my prescribed PT to the letter and focusing on gratitude that once again, I could move pain-free. May came and went and I was enjoying some low-impact stairmaster workouts at my local YMCA, long distance walking as well as starting a little slow jogging, even though it was against Doctor recommendations.

Interestingly, a few weeks after I didn’t go to San Diego (again, for which I’d PAID for) I got a Finishers Photo in the mail from the Rock and Roll Marathon. Enclosed was a small proof of a blurry looking guy with a bib number apparently close to the one I would have had should I have gone finishing. The finish line clock showed him finishing in something like five and a half-plus hours. I felt somewhat irritated like this was adding insult to injury….literally!

As any of you who have read my blogs know, I got over the Doctor-induced paranoia of running again and have done hundreds more races, as well as an additional 28 marathons since then, including a streak in 2005 where I ran five in nine weeks. I managed to run the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon in 2003 as well as Milwaukee’s Lakefront marathon in 2002, 2003 and 2005. In the case of 2003, I also ran Chicago one week later, and in the case of 2005, Milwaukee was the middle race of a three week Trifecta which included Toronto, Milwaukee and Chicago (for more on this read my blog entitled “78.6 Miles – a tale of Three Cities”)

Also during 2003, I had a total life shift – by the end of the year, I had left my career and job of almost 12 years, ended my 18 year marriage, moved all my remaining possessions to Wisconsin, and then packed some bare necessities into my Chevy Avalanche, and moved myself across the country to a small rental home in the mountains near Flagstaff, Arizona. Got away from it all for sure. That’s a story for another time, but that year, even though I managed to run and finish five marathons, one of the casualties wound up being the Country Music Marathon in Nashville, Tennessee, which, again, was an inaugural (I think?) that I signed up for well in advance and of course mailed my non-refundable early bird registration fee. As my life imploded inward it was all I could do to keep moving forward, and the trip down south just plain fell by the wayside due to timing and logistics. Another burned fee.

In 2004, my new-found life in Arizona seemed to run it’s course quickly (hah, great pun that!) and by mid-June, I began making plans to return to Wisconsin to start a new life there in my house on Lake Okauchee. As I was doing that, I thought it would be great to anchor my new home intention by running Milwaukee’s Lakefront Marathon again – but this time as a true “Home Town” race. So, once again, I sent my early bird registration fee in sometime in May before the fees went up for the October Race.

At the eleventh hour at the end of June, as I was attempting to make a grand and permanent exit from the Desert State, I “met this girl”, so to speak, and began a whirlwind and tumultuous six-month Midwest-Southwest long distance relationship. One of the major festivities we planned, was to combine her unused and about to expire TimeShare points, and my unused and about to expire Frequent Flyer miles into a trip to Kauai in early October, 2004. As the only Time Share and Frequent Flier mile dates available overlapped the time of the Lakefront Marathon – you guessed it. I burned ANOTHER Lakefront Marathon fee, opting instead for Sun and Fun.

(As it turns out, it would have been far more fun to stay in Milwaukee and run. But again, that’s another story!)

In 2006, two relationships, and several back and forth trips across the country later, I signed up yet again for the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon, hoping to run it twice in two years. And, in fact, based upon my 2006 schedule where I managed to be absolutely in the wrong part of the world at the wrong time for ANY marathon, this was to be the one and only 26.2 mile experience I would have that year. Of course I paid the early bird registration fee, put it on the calendar, and growled like a Doberman at anyone who tried to insert an event or suggest that there was somewhere else I needed to be during that first weekend in October.


However, fate (read FOOT) interfered – and in September, I was in Sedona, Arizona facilitating a three-day organizational event for two dozen people to put plans, committees and action items together for a new School. The event was wild and wooly, but ultimately organizational talent (mine) prevailed and we wrapped it up with hugs, excitement and, most importantly to me – a plan.

RIGHT at the second the meeting was ending, I looked outside. We were meeting in an opulent and sprawling Sedona residence, with beautiful Red Rock Views. A typical Arizona day, there was bright sunshine and suddenly, at the same time, Rain started pouring on the roof of the house. “Crap!” I’m thinking. My brand new Toyota was sitting outside, and in deference to the desert temperatures, I had left the sunroof and windows wide open.

Thinking I didn’t want a drowned interior, I went zipping out of the house (in bare feet, by the way – casual meeting!) and hit rain-soaked ceramic (yes, ceramic!) steps leading down to the driveway at full tilt. It was like hitting glare ice at top speed. All I remember was that I had this epiphanic moment of thinking “Why, yes…..I’m totally screwed” and then I tumbled all the way down the stairs, actually blacking out for an instant and coming to a minute or so later fetched up against the bottom with limbs and arms twisted at weird angles.

The pain was unbelievable – mostly from my wrist, which I’d fallen with my full weight on. I was vaguely aware of some foot pain, but the wrist was the worst, not to mention a soup plate-sized bruise that developed later on my left hip.

Anyway, the wrist as it turns out wasn’t broken. It did give me about six weeks of pain until suddenly it was fine. My feet however were a different story. I had pretty severe pain on both of them for weeks after the fall, but I ignored it for the most part. Both turned black and blue, both were excrutiating each morning as I got up. No matter, the wrist was more distracting. Two days later, I hiked up a 3,000 foot peak in Southern New Mexico, over totally rough and rocky terrain, grimly ignoring the stabbing foot pains. A few days later, I was out running again in the desert near Sauharita, Arizona, clipping along, and again ignoring the pain from my feet. On the third day of this, I was cruising along a two-lane desert highway, feeling for the most part, pretty good and really zoning, not paying much attention to my surroundings. Suddenly I find myself within about six feet of a huge Rattlesnake coiled and sunning itself on the side of the road, on the white side-stripe. Reflexes being what they were, I made a spectacular five-foot sideways leap before I actually realized what I was doing landing neatly at an angle on my my right foot. A lightening bolt of pain shot all the way up my leg, and it was then I finally had to admit that there might be worse things than a broken wrist.

At this point, we are about 10 days before the Milwaukee race My new partner Cayelin and I are headed back to the Midwest, and I decided to rest, hoping that time would wound my Heel, I mean heal my wounds. We get back to Milwaukee, and on Wednesday before the race we have a maintenance appointment with our Chiropractor friend Dr. TJ.. I mention my tumble down the stairs to him with a vague indication that “something may not be right down there with the feet”. I also mention that I’m planning on running Milwaukee that Sunday. Without any further ado, TJ throws me on his X-ray machine and a few minutes later, slaps the films up. “Dude, “ he says. “You’re not running anything.” He points to the X-rays and explains that not only have I stress fractured my left foot, but my right foot is actually broken.

“And you’ve been running on this?” he said incredulously. I smiled sheepishly. “It only hurts when I go laterally”, was my weak reply.

A visit to a Sports Ortho (and after NOT Running Milwaukee AGAIN resulting in the THIRD time now I’ve contributed my money but not my presence to that race) I’m told to rest for six more weeks and then I’ll be fine.

After being a total bitch to everyone around me for the days leading up to Milwaukee and including the Sunday of the race (perfect conditions – Low 50’s and endless sun) I surrendered to my fate and spent the next six weeks performing extensive therapy on the couch. I enlisted two World-Class therapists for help – Ben and Jerry, with sessions of at least a Pint a day marking the progress of my recovery. (Favorite flavors included Strawberry Cheesecake and Vanilla Heath bar – I’m a non-traditionalist, no Chunky Monkey or Cherry Garcia for me!)

After recovering from the broken foot, I soon returned to running. I remember the first time I went out it was like starting all over again, where I struggled to cover a three mile loop, actually stopping and walking several times, winded and fatigued. However, it all came back quicker than I imagined, and I did several 5k’s between the end of November and January. The only problem was, kicking my Ben and Jerry’s Pint a day habit…..

2007 so far has been one of my best running years ever. I’ve done five marathons and each time improved my finish time. In many of the local races, 5k’s, 10’s and others, I’ve placed in the top three in my age group, taking home several medals or plaques. I’ve improved my half marathon time and most of all, I’ve just simply enjoyed running for running’s sake. Those of you who have read my Race Reports this year can attest to that.

And this is while my good running buddies, Scott and Gregg both have suffered from some debilitating foot and leg injuries respectively that have sidelined them from their running and in some cases caused them to burn race fees as well based upon the timing of their injuries

So at the end of October, Cayelin and I made the move from Wisconsin to Tucson for the winter, fetching up in a small townhouse on the south end of town. A short four blocks north of here is the Reid Park Zoo and Golf Course, with a great 3-4 mile paved biking and running loop around it. The weather has been spectacular the whole time, with cool nights in the 50’s, great mornings, and day time highs in the 80’s – sort of an endless summer. I was actually looking forward to improving my conditioning with regular running at the slight (2,500 feet) altitude where we are at and the stellar weather conditions.

And, of course, months ago, knowing that Tucson would be my winter home town, I signed up for the Tucson Marathon to be held on December 2nd, thinking that it would put the cherry on top of a great running year.

The first two days we were here, I ran Reid Park, feeling strong and noting how many other runners and bikers were out there. A great community, and so close to home as it were. And, I was composing a blog that I was going to write, something to the effect of “This has been one of the best running years ever…When I think back to the broken foot episode of last year, I’m grateful for…” and going on from there

Instead……


Three days after we got here, we are getting ready to leave for the SAME Organizational event that was held in Sedona the year before. Again, I am to facilitate, and there are high hopes that we are again, going to do some cool things with the group.

A day later, Here is what I wrote to Scott about what happened:

Getting ready to leave today for my Super Council event, I'm crossing the room in our new space and clipped my right foot on a wooden futon chair, that I SWEAR reached over about fourteen inches to nail me

Caught my little toe on the right foot.......and, not to mince words...it's broken. It has the same feeling that the broken foot had last year and, in fact, I had the same nausea when it happened (I caught it in bare feet at full tilt) WHACK!

It's swollen to twice normal size, and seems bent away at a right angle from the other toes. The entire foot is purple. Can't drive. Tough to walk. I can't believe how painful it is and how much I lead with my right foot AND the same little toe

This may sideline me, again, for a bit.

This after two back-to-back amazing runs around Reid Park, and I'm composing a chapter in my mind something to the effect of "My running's going really well this year. When I think of the broken foot episode of last year and the contrast of how well I've done and how much I've enjoyed running this year........" etc etc

Things were going so well, and then, in a New York SECOND things shift quantomly

And, at the time of this writing, Tucson is just a few weeks away….another hometown race I’ve signed up and paid for.

Well my friends, such is life. I am officially on the mend as we speak though I haven’t been able to run for two weeks. What is it with Feet and me?? It’s extremely disappointing and as I said before, it really PISSES me off to burn entry fees. It doesn’t seem right to go and get the T-shirt, I really feel you need to cross the finish line before you can actually wear those shirts you get. So, the money just gets wasted as it were, though I can take some small solace in knowing it does support good causes and a good event for others.

I’ve managed not to be too much of a bitch about this hiatus. Maybe not too much. Maybe a little? Well…maybe you should ask Cayelin. It’s all relative…..

The good news is, I know I will heal. The bad news is, I may have to be sitting on the sidelines the day of the Tucson race while others are out having fun in what will probably be some excellent weather. And, I might not meet my goal of six marathons this year.

Or maybe I will. Doc TJ is in Milwaukee and can’t tell me not to run………….

Thanks as always for reading! Would love to hear your stories and thoughts on losing entry fees and cancelled races.. and a reminder to us all –

THERE’S ALWAYS ANOTHER RUN!

Best to you all!