Were the runners or the resident being unreasonable?

[AdventureBe]

I was at a very large running event yesterday. It's been going for 20 years and has raised £100,000s for charity.

Generally well organised, but there aren't enough toilets - as there often aren't at running events.

The main carpark was a field with a 20m wooded area along one edge. On the other side of the wooded bit there is a 6 ft fence which is the boundary for gardens.

Many runners, male and female, were going into the woods for a last minute wee. Some residents were stood on steps to look over their fences and shout at people relieving themselves. They were going in the woods, not against the fence.

Opinion was very split. Most runners thinking really, what's the harm of having a wee in the woods, residents obviously feeling differently about lots of people weeing quite close to their gardens.

Runners are used to some pretty awful facilities at races and to having to make do with what's available, so may have warped ideas of what's Ok

What do you think?

Ah, actually I should have told them they needed more bins too......

TBF, most of the offenders had that ability already, being men. Some women used the bushes, but it was predominantly men.

This one and three others like it in the county are the primary fundraising tools used by the small charity that organises it.

that charity is going the right way to get itself a very bad name, which will reduce their funding right down.

This event has been going for 20 years - yet the organisation sounds substandard if they didn't anticipate and prepared for the runners needing to pee every ten minutes before a race.

You might even say it was a piss poor effort...

Is it reasonable not to provide loos you know there is a demand for in order to save money?
NOPE.
No matter what charity you are supporting.

The way mass participation races are organised is a HUGE issue. Most of them now are run by companies as profit making ventures (fair enough). But, quite often the customers (the runners) aren't given value, and the companies neglect their duty of care to their host cities. I did a medium- sized city marathon recently; it was expensive to enter, badly run from a competitor's perspective, and the organising company left huge amounts of litter and mess in an area of beauty (water bottles and gel wrappers from aid stations mainly). The prize money was appalling, and the way the runners were treated (from the front to the fun runners and walkers alike) was shocking. The company was clearly in it for the money, but not willing to carry out their side of the bargain. It is becoming more and more of a problem in our sport, especially as so many people want to take part.

That's absolutely right ultra. I don't enter many big races anymore, but this one is an old school one and the Charity, not a company is the organiser.

Most of the runners in these mass participation races are not "runners".

Yes, that's the bottom line and most of them probably don't realise that if they don't go, then they probably won't even need to once they get going. However, it's the organisers responsibility to deter this behaviour through sanctions - e.g. where I live it's typical that anyone seen littering the course is disqualified immediately, as we know that our license to race on public trails comes from not peeing everyone off through wrecking them for other people. Maybe the organisers should do something similar here.

It makes no difference if it's a charity or a company organising the race, if they are the organiser they need to take responsibility.

If this means they have to spend a bit more on facilities, then that's what they have to do.

Because nobody should had to put up with hundreds of people using the area around their home as a public toilet, not because those people are running for charity or any other reason.

You have asked if it were the runners or the residents being unreasonable and it seems to be unanimous that the runners/organisers are at fault.

I'm not sure how anybody could really think the residents were at fault for objecting to hundreds of people peeing behind their homes, in some cases "quite close to their gardens" as you said they were in your first post.

And again, I think the residents were being very reasonable in not filming all that to back up their complaints. It's clearly something that happens every year, as they were waiting and ready to complain when it happened.

And as I said before, they probably have people doing the same thing on a much smaller scale every other day of the year as well.

Sometimes an event outgrows the place where it began.

It sounds like this one needs to move on, and go to somewhere where enough loos and litter management can be provided.

It's just not right to keep imposing on goodwill, generally, and definitely not now there are clear signs it's expired.

Also, as the neighbours seemed organised (all out and shouting complaints?) this must be the last straw. I was wondering if there were promises after the last time that the crowd would be effectively managed. You can't keep running something on a promise of 'it'll be OK next time' when each time the same problems occur.