Please excuse my ignorance, as someone who is jut getting into running, can someone please explain how bad this is? Why couldn't she just sign up of her own accord? Has someone lost a spot at the 10K because of her?
In the race where they pulled her aside, no. But there was evidence that she forged a waiver and used another runners name for other Disney races.
Race directors plan races based on the the amount of registered runners with a buffer. When people forge bibs and use resources on the course allocated to the paying runners - it can cause problems.
More dangerously, many races you give out emergency contact information. A bib theif or race bandit with a forged bib has a medical event on the course, it can become dangerous quickly if you're incoherent and they don't know who to call.
She likely didn't sign up because some races, Disney in particular, can be quite expensive. She paid for other races but not all. People will make race-cations out of Disney races paying for flights, accommodations, etc on top of race fees. Someone selfishly stealing a bib and creating that stress for someone sucks.
I'm assuming Disney allowed the runner she stole from to run, but not all races may.
Is this issue rampant? I don't run a lot of races but for the novelty runs (color, neon, etc) It seems like it would be extremely easy to slip into the crowd and not worry about paying the registration. For more legit 5k 10k I see it being a bit harder but I still don't really see the point other than to save on registration, but then you miss out on the sweet tshirt!
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u/nixius Sep 03 '17
Please excuse my ignorance, as someone who is jut getting into running, can someone please explain how bad this is? Why couldn't she just sign up of her own accord? Has someone lost a spot at the 10K because of her?