If you have a BTMR related question that you can’t find the answer to please let us know! If it is not specific just to you or your situation we may post it here.

Are headphones allowed?
Are there refunds or waiting lists?
How did you arrive at the 3h30m cut-off?
Why don’t you want us to park on Ruxton Avenue, it’s public?
Why can’t I get a shirt if I don’t race or I miss the cut-off?
Why do you duplicate awards?

Are headphones allowed?
No! And you may get DQed if you wear them!

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Are there refunds or waiting lists?
We understand that sometimes things happen; jobs, family commitments and yes, even injuries. However, we do not offer refunds if you can not make the race. PERIOD! Rest assured however, that 100% of your entry fee will still be donated to the selected nonprofit and/or volunteer organizations:-)

As for a waiting list—there is none! Simply, we overbook the race and count on a certain % of “No Shows” to bring us back down to our desired numbers.

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How did you arrive at the 3h30m cut-off?
For the inaugural race in 2000 we used a cut-off of 4 hours. We basically pulled this time out of thin air and we really did not know how it would turn out. In the end just 2 people missed the cut-off. However, in our post-race surveys we got a large number of complaints about the awards ceremony starting so late. It was held at noon that year — one hour after the last official finisher. This allowed us enough time to break down the finish area and move the show down to Soda Springs Park. However, because the average finishing time of the race was 2h30mins this meant that on average people were waiting 2h30mins for the awards ceremony to start. While that does not seem like a lot of time compared to most races of this length we can see how this could seem like a long time to tired runners. A change was in order!.

First we established a different crew to set-up the awards ceremony. This allowed us to hold the awards ceremony 1/2 hour after the last official finisher instead of 1 hour. We feel 1/2 hour is the best we can do on this front because some time is still needed to compile the results and get them down to the park. We also believe that everyone should have the opportunity to be at the awards ceremony. Therefore we are not going to start the awards ceremony before the cut-off time like some races do. Indeed, some age-group award winners often finish towards the back of the pack.

Next we changed the cut-off from 4 hours to 3h30mins. Before we did this we looked at how many people this would affect. In all 13 people ran times between 3:30 and 4 hours that year. Half of them where within 5 minutes of 3:30 which we felt did not present much of an issue. Even so we contacted several of the 13 people and asked for their opinion of changing the cut-off to 3:30. Almost without exception they said, “Go for it, I will just train harder.” Several did just that and came back the following year and beat the new cut-off.

The net effect of these two steps was that the awards ceremony was moved up 1 hour to 11:00am. In 2001 only five people missed the new cut-off so we felt that the change was more than justified. Especially when the post-race surveys indicated that most were now happy with the start time of the awards ceremony.

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Why don’t you want us to park on Ruxton Avenue, it’s public?
This race is about giving back to the community and the mountain in which we live and play. We don’t think doing this has to inconvenience the community. Ruxton Avenue is a residential street and many of the residents park on the street. On the other hand, most of the businesses in town do not even open until noon by which time we will mostly be gone. Besides, everyone knows the best races come after a good warm-up. 3/4 of a mile will not only not kill you, it will probably make your race go better:-)

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Why can’t I get a shirt if I don’t race or I miss the cut-off?
Simply, we want your race shirt to mean something. We view the shirt as an award, not as a packet stuffer. If you see a BTMR shirt you will know that the runner finished the race and finished it under the cut-off. We have heard more than a few times from runners who said all the way down the mountain they were pushing their hardest to beat the cut-off so they could get a shirt. For many, a shirt is the only award they will get and we don’t want to cheapen it by handing out shirts to anyone who signs up for the race. Also, all of the volunteer shirts are marked “volunteer” so again the runner’s shirts are kept special!

Now some have argued that they paid for the shirt when they signed up for the race. Besides the fact that it is spelled out that the shirt is a finisher’s shirt this simply is not true! 100% of the race entry fee is donated to nonprofit and/or volunteer organizations. The shirts are paid for by our presenting sponsor — not the runners. The only way to get one is by earning it! However, if you are an official finisher you can buy an extra shirt if there are any left over.

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Why do you duplicate awards?
We don’t! We have multiple award winners. “Duplicate awards” is an erroneous term used by the “spread the wealth” crowd. Remember, we are not handing out awards, we are awarding awards!

When we call someone up to the stage for getting 4th in their age-group you will know that they really got 4th and not 8th with 3 people getting skimmed from the overall and 1 more from the masters. Further, most of the people that this concerns state that they would be embarrassed to get an award only because someone who beat them got skimmed from their division. We believe that skimming overall and/or masters winners from age-group awards is age discrimination at best and penalizing success at worst.

Using the masters category as an example, if the award to the first runner 40 years old or older is $150 it does not make sense to give the $150 to the 2nd person 40 or over just because the 1st person 40 or over also got in the top 3. Indeed, if the 1st person 40 or over was 3rd overall it turns out they would end up getting LESS prize money than the 2nd person 40 or over! How can anyone claim that is right?

The key here is that we view each category as a separate competition and each can be won by anyone who qualifies for that category. Just like when you took several classes in school you were allowed to get an “A” in each of them. At the same time, the class valedictorian most likely got an “A” in all of them as well. Just imagine if you could not get an “A” in Math because you got an “A” in English or if the valedictorian was not allowed to get an “A” in a class because they were already the valedictorian. Silly isn’t it? And yet there are some that want to deny an age-grouper an award just because they happen to also be in the overall awards.

At any rate, because we value our runner’s opinions — it is their race after all — we made this a survey question after the first race. The question and the results were as follows:

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