Why the Columbus Marathon Works

Tim Fulton 00:09Welcome to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, marathons are more than just races. They're complex productions, community rituals, and at times, catalysts for civic pride. In this week's episode, I sat down with Darris Blackford, longtime race director of the Nationwide Children's Hospital Columbus Marathon and Half Marathon. We discussed how the event evolved from a tourism initiative in 1980 to one of the country's most respected independent races, and how Darris went from running it as an amateur to running it as a professional. We explored the behind-the-scenes logistics of staging a 15,000-person race through multiple municipalities, what makes Columbus's marathon structurally and financially unique, and how technology has reshaped the race experience without replacing the purity of putting one foot in front of the other. Darris also shared insights on elite runners, nonprofit partnerships, and why fireworks beat flyovers every time. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Darris Blackford, the race director of the Nationwide Children's Hospital Columbus Marathon and Half Marathon. Darris, how are you?

Darris Blackford 01:46I'm great, thank you. Yes, the extended title—it is the longest title of any race, I think, around.

Tim Fulton 01:53We have to name things properly. But I will probably just refer to it as the marathon, or the Columbus Marathon. How long have you been the race director, sorry?

Darris Blackford 02:03This is my 16th year. It'll be my 16th year, 15th race, plus one, because of COVID—even though I was still there, we didn't have the race. So I took over in the spring of 2010. There had been a different business that had been in charge of it, and some issues came up. And so the board—I had been working for the event, doing marketing and helping them with marketing for several years, and my history goes back to the '90s with the race, which I'm happy to talk about—but I was asked to take over. And at the time, I was doing marketing for the local Harley dealers, there was three of them at the time. But I'd been a runner for many, many years. I thought, oh yeah, I can do this, I can do both. Those first three months, not a lot had been done on the event. And in the motorcycle world, kind of like the running world, people are getting outdoors, it's springtime, and it just got too busy. So I went to the owner of the Harley dealers, and I just said, hey, I'm sorry, but this opportunity came up, I'm really passionate about this—which he knew. And so I just went to the marathon full time that summer, and I haven't looked back.

Tim Fulton 03:22Okay. And the Columbus Marathon—could I refer to it as semi-unique in that it's independently run? Like, there isn't a national company that runs a couple of different marathons around the country. Like, I think Indy is that way, right?

Darris Blackford 03:38Well, the way Columbus—it's a nonprofit. And it was started back in 1980 as a way to bring people to the city. These had been done in other places, but back in the late '70s, these were kind of popping up. And so city leaders were like, hey, this is a way we can bring people to our city. And it did really well, and it was popular during the big running boom back then. But the difference is being a nonprofit versus—there's some for-profit companies that run other events, including Cap City, which is a great event, we're good friends with them, but that's a different structure. So there's a board of directors, and then there's no employees. Everybody, including myself, are contractors. But basically, I mean, this is all I do. So all that means is, I pay my own taxes, I pay my own benefits.

Tim Fulton 04:36Well, and I actually—and this will show you how nerdy I am—I looked up the 990 for the Columbus Marathon, and I was like, I don't see Darris on here. But that's one way to do it, right? It's like, you just have a renewing contract with them on record.

Darris Blackford 04:54And that's how it's been ever since the very beginning. When there were previous people that were in charge of it, there were different businesses or entities. And then there's a team of people that are involved in putting the event together, but most of them are only from the summer on, or summer only, like a few weeks out, and then during the race. Just depends on what area they're specializing in. Like, we have someone who's in charge of—we call her the environmental manager, but she's in charge of trash. We have someone who's in charge of our elite athletes and our wheelchair athletes. So really, they're not busy right now ordering things or working with the city on permits. Their job really is race weekend, to make sure that everybody's where they need to be, and so on and so forth.

Tim Fulton 05:38And so—and this is me getting further nerdy—do those folks contract with the board directly? They contract with me. I've got to have an entity.

Darris Blackford 05:50Basically, I have to deal with all that. And then they get a 1099. It makes it easier for the board, because it wouldn't be—it's not set up where they have, you know, there's a treasurer and things like that, there's an accountant. But it's not like they want to be in the business of employee relations and health benefits and all that. And it's really interesting in this space—and that includes people like Cap City and other events—there are some people that just specialize in working on these events as a 1099 person. That's kind of their side thing.

Tim Fulton 06:33I think of it very similarly to—I used to book speakers for a conference. And so it's like, yeah, I know what my busy time is, and there's a board and entity, but I have basically a separate contract to get speakers on stage. Yeah, right, exactly. So we're in June right now—or at the time of recording, we're about to be in June. Where do things stand in terms of logistics and planning for the event in October?

Darris Blackford 07:06So the way I have done this, and I've really developed this pattern over the years, is I just start from the end of the last year, working my list of things, and there's certain things I do throughout the year. So in June, we're basically getting ready to order our medals for the race, working on our T-shirt, working on our designs and things like that. We work with the local retailer, Columbus Running Company. They handle our relationship with ASICS as far as getting the shirts. But then we're going to work with local designers on what's the look going to be. A lot of it is starting to prepare our permits, for not only Columbus, but Bexley, Upper Arlington, Grandview Heights, Ohio State. We have to work with all those police departments, plus the cities themselves. So there's a lot of that paperwork, insurance, all the things I have to work with, everything from certificates of insurance and additional insureds. And then a lot of it is the vendors that we're going to be working with, whether it's the people who provide the restrooms or the fencing, as well as our food orders. We start to plan those things. A lot of the pieces from the participants' side started in January, when we opened up registration. They sign up, and they're done, except they have to prepare themselves. It's a train, correct? So what we start to see is, some people are training all the time, it's just part of their lifestyle. But people that are really getting committed, they'll start in June. And there's a lot of local running clubs and training programs that really will kick off for our event in June, with about an 18-week, 20-week period that they're focusing on. But a lot of people also, maybe they are already running, and they did the Cap City, and they just kind of roll that training. Maybe they take a little bit of time off at the end of April, and just roll that into their summer of preparation, and then they're ready for the fall.

Tim Fulton 09:00And so, registration is open. Is it full yet, or no?

Darris Blackford 09:04It's not full. Full is a moving target. Full used to be about 18,000 people. It used to be 18 and 19, and it was too many. It was great, but when we figured out that, according to the Venturi effect—and I'm going to throw some science at you— I'm not familiar. —however wide the start line is can only be as wide as the most narrow street in the first early miles. In other words, if we had an 80-foot-wide start line, and we got to Bexley and the first street they turn onto is 40 feet, people are going to end up on the sidewalks, in yards. And that's a problem. It's kind of a weird science vortex.

Tim Fulton 09:50Interesting. Because—I mean, I've ridden in Pelotonia, and I can certainly imagine in that environment, it's like, you can't flex that way, but runners don't adjust for that.

Darris Blackford 10:06But if there's just so many—okay, so the point I'm trying to make is, when we were at 18,000, we were able to control what happened on those streets, but it was too crowded. It just puts a strain on the early water stops, the volunteers, things like that. It's just so many people. So by being in that 15-to-16,000 sweet spot, it allows us to keep the quality high, provide what everybody's going to need, and also serve, particularly, Bexley and the Near East Side and German Village without just overrunning things and causing issues where people are going to get injured. So we were at that 18, 17,000, then there was a little bit of a dip in the late teens, 17, 18, 19. We had our 40th anniversary, so we had a bump that year. But then COVID hit, so we went to zero. So coming back from COVID in 2021, we were about half of where we had been, maybe the 6,000, 7,000 spot. And then we bumped up again, and then we reached a point last year where we're in that 13-to-14,000, and it's getting close to a really sweet spot. We can go a little bit bigger. But the last three years, we have sold out each year. We've had to close registration earlier and earlier. So we won't make it to the end of August for the marathon and half marathon before we have to close it.

Tim Fulton 11:31Got it. So those that are listening that are considering it, now is the time to go ahead and register. And you guys have some elite runners that participate. Is there outreach you have to do to get them? Or is it just—because, please correct me if I'm wrong, if you get a certain time in the Columbus Marathon, it allows you to qualify for, like, the Boston Marathon, or the New York Marathon?

Darris Blackford 11:59You can qualify for automatic entry, or to better your chances of getting in. But Boston, the time is the only one that, if you make the time—and there's certain parameters—clearly they run your credit card and everything, they're happy to do that. But we do—we've got a really good reputation. I mean, again, that 44-year tradition. It was always known as one of the—not one of the first races, because there's some that are over 50 years old, but one of the long-standing races, and had a tradition for being a good race with a good elite field. So we don't really have to recruit too much. They also know where they're going after the money, and the people whose job it is to go out and be runners, they kind of know, we're going to go to Columbus, but the big money's at races like New York and Chicago. Is there a purse for winning? So first place wins $4,000, which is a great amount, but it's more of a second tier. If you're going to New York or Chicago, your appearance fees would probably equal that. But again, they're also 10 minutes faster than our winners. So we're a good mid-sized race, a good big-city race, and we offer all the benefits. But the prize money has really never been something that Columbus wanted to be that one that was offering, you know, $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 prize money. It just doesn't fit into our model.

Tim Fulton 13:33Okay, got it. But should I think of our race as—we're very flat, right?

Darris Blackford 13:41We don't use that as much. I mean, back in the day, the slogan was, "our world is flat," playing off Columbus, which I really liked. But then you don't want to be so pushing that, because places like Chicago are pancake flat compared to what we have, when you're coming out—in particular, when you go run up through Ohio State campus, up to Upper Arlington, there's some climb to it, that people complain, this isn't flat, like you said. Well, that's why we stopped saying "our world is flat."

Tim Fulton 14:12Got it. And how do you approach—do you view yourself as sort of the representative? Obviously, you're here doing a podcast interview, but are you also the public face of the marathon?

Darris Blackford 14:29Good or bad, yes. I have a face for radio, a face for podcast. I mean, it was my first marathon as a runner, back in 1991. I'd moved to Columbus that year. I've run the race 15 times. And now this will be my 16th year, not counting COVID. And so I feel that right now, no one's more knowledgeable about this event than I am, of anybody who's on this planet, because I really make it my cause to know it and care about it and to nurture it for whoever comes after me. And I think the people before me felt the same way. But I feel strongly about what it means to the community, and not just the community at large, which really has changed in the last few years, but the running community. It was always a respected event. In 1992, we hosted the Olympic trials for men, which was kind of a unique situation. And so knowing, carrying that flag of what this event represents in the running world, I feel it's important to represent it in a good way.

Tim Fulton 15:41And do you handle sponsorships and stuff?

Darris Blackford 15:45What's great about our event is, knock on wood, we can pay the bills with the registration funds. So when people sign up, those dollars are used to buy the shirts and buy the medals and buy the food and insurance and pay the six-figure police cost that it costs to put this thing on, and so forth. But we get a little bit of money for a few things, but not much in the way of sponsorship. We get some in kind, which is great, like Gatorade. I mean, the value of the Gatorade sponsorship is six figures. It's a lot of Gatorade. I don't know what the dollar amount is, but it's five figures for sure, because it's Gatorade, it's cups, it's all the jugs, all the signage, and really the branding and the brand recognition of being partnered with them. If we had to buy that, our cost would increase, or we'd have to find other sponsors. But that's where the model works so well with what we have, because we're able to really run it as a business, but we're not trying to put money away for shareholders. We do try to put money away into a rainy-day account, because we had a rainy day—we had COVID, and we had to give everybody their money back. They still had expenses that year. Some things had already been purchased. And so the bottom line was, having a little bit of a bank account is great, to protect yourself. But what's great is, by partnering with the hospital, they're really good at twisting arms—I always say that as a joke—they're good at getting people to open their wallets. And because of that, all the funds that they bring in go to the hospital. So I'll use an example. A mile marker has a sponsorship, I think it's $25,000 for a company to sponsor a mile. That money goes to the hospital.

Tim Fulton 17:39And you guys don't even touch it? It's just a check to Nationwide.

Darris Blackford 17:43Miles are an asset. Water stops are an asset. Entertainment, the bands that are playing those locations. So the hospital goes out and sells those spots. Become a water stop sponsor, and whatever that dollar amount is; become a mile marker sponsor. And that's how about half of the million dollars a year is raised, through the hospital.

Tim Fulton 18:08And should I think of that as—because you guys could collect that, you are a nonprofit, you could collect that sponsorship money, but it's much more that it feels good that people are running in the Nationwide Children's Hospital Columbus Marathon. Are they cancer survivors, or—

Darris Blackford 18:34It's patients, all sorts of patients from the hospital, that are—

Tim Fulton 18:38—highlighted at each mile marker. There is also an acknowledgement of those that pass away. Is that the benefit of that partnership, is that what you're saying?

Darris Blackford 18:50So there's multiple benefits. I mean, number one—I'll break it down a little bit easier—from the standpoint of, we raise a million a year. About half of that comes from those sponsors, who literally sponsor things on behalf of the hospital, and the money goes to the hospital. Then there's the part of the fundraisers. They're called Children's Champions. And anybody who runs can become a Children's Champion. And they basically do pledges, or however they want to raise the money. Different people set different goals or amounts, and there's a whole fundraising mechanism through the hospital. There's a website, and they help you to communicate. It's a lot like Pelotonia.

Tim Fulton 19:30Right. Like, if I just wanted to run, I could just—what is the registration fee?

Darris Blackford 19:34It depends. It starts off in January, there's like an early-bird rate. I think it opened at $110 for the marathon, and $95 for the half, I think.

Tim Fulton 19:44But I couldn't just pay $110 and that would be it?

Darris Blackford 19:47You could. That's because when it first started, we were in our 32nd year. Whatever year it was, in 2012, it wasn't going to be fair to go to people and say, well, from now on, you can only do it if you raise money. We were too far down the line. Pelotonia, that's how they started, exactly, wonderful model. But if they had been 10 years in and then tried to get people to do that, the outcry might have been too much.

Tim Fulton 20:13Well, and I don't know what it is now, but I remember when I did Pelotonia, I did the 100, and it was like, oh, you have to raise $1,000. And it's like, oh, that's—

Darris Blackford 20:23That's small. But if you had done it for previous years and you didn't have that set up, you probably would have said, now I'm not interested. So we knew that some people have no interest in fundraising, and that's great. They still want to take part in the event. But they also—there's a benefit just by signing up, because the marathon board is very good, and we've worked hard to be fiscally conservative. We plan for higher expenses and plan for lower revenues, so we always know that we're going to be able to cover the costs. And monies that are extra, part of that gets donated back. So in the—what year is this, 14th year—2012, so the 13th year of the partnership, more than a million, I think it's 1.4 million, has been donated by the marathon board to the hospital. So of that 1.4 million, 10% of that has come from the marathon board itself. Which is really—it's nice to know that some of your dollars are going towards that. At the same time, it can't all go to that, because there's T-shirts, and those expenses continue to go up every year. So we work to be fair in our pricing. There's races around the country—New York is great, Chicago is great—but those are two, three hundred dollar-plus events. We offer all the amenities, all the fun. We're not Chicago or New York, but you won't find a better start than our race. You won't. We've got great volunteer support, and great support on the course, with the fluid stations and the entertainment. And that's because myself, people on the team, the board, have all run or walked the event. And we've run and walked other events. And so we kind of know what the best events do, what are the best practices, and we really adopt those. And we take ideas. It's funny, I was telling someone the other day, the race used to start at 8 a.m., this is before I got involved. And there was a flyover by the Air National Guard, because sunrise is at 7:45 in October, and anytime after that they can do the flyover. Well, the race got moved to 7:30, before sunrise, so they couldn't do the flyover. And this is my first year, I'm like, well, what are we going to do? How can we have fun with this? Well, I had done the Disney World Marathon in the past, and they start with fireworks. So now we start with fireworks. And it's a best practice, something cool I saw, and we stole the idea. There's no new ideas out there, right? You just want to adopt them. And we also try to adopt ideas from best practices of retailers, or, you know, how does Starbucks communicate when people walk in? We try to think things through, from our signage to our branding to our messaging, that just is modern-day thinking in an industry, in a sector, that really has roots in sort of independent, kind of put on your shoes and run. It doesn't have to have the bells and whistles, and that's part of the allure. But at the same time, we're in a modern society, so you want to kind of mimic what people are experiencing in other parts of their life.

Tim Fulton 23:38Yeah. And that brings up a good point. How much has technology changed how a runner experiences the marathon, and do you think that's good?

Darris Blackford 23:52You know, from the standpoint of operationally, the technology has been more tweaks. Like the timing, for example. You used to run, and if you were at the back of the pack and the gun went off, your time started when the gun went off. Well, now it starts when you cross the start line, because there's a little timing chip in your bib. Your bib is basically just a sticker with a timing chip, and that goes on there. So you could be 10 minutes after the start, and when you cross the start line, your clock starts. Great tweak, great thing. But still, the concept of a starting line is a starting line. Safety helps. For example, we have something called real-time runner tracking, which allows people to track their family member. But it also allows us to do things like push out notifications in case of emergency. And it helps us from a medical standpoint, knowing who people are if an issue were to happen. Then the technology that the police and fire are using, same thing—they've got the ability to communicate if we have an issue that comes up. So people have really taken to the availability of technology for their own purposes, in particular GPS systems and smartwatches and all that. But the big thing that's interesting is—and we found this out from surveys—80% of the participants carry their phone in a case, and most of them are listening to their own music. Which is kind of a bad thing from our standpoint, because we try to provide between 60 and 80 entertainers on the course. But if they can't hear them—you know, it's a lot of money, we give those people a little stipend, thanks for playing, and you don't want someone to come out and have to be out there for a few hours. They enjoy their craft already, but it's interesting that that's become more and more popular. It's also somewhat of a danger issue, because—I've been in races, and a police or emergency vehicle will be trying to get through, and people don't hear because they're at their basket. But you know, so the technology—it's also affected things like the gear, like these super shoes that have carbon plating and all that. But honestly, it's still fundamentally the act of movement, putting one foot in front of the other, and that's what's kind of pure about it, and kind of nice about it. It's funny, I never got into cycling, and my brother got into it. But I was always thinking to myself—at least trying to legitimize in my own mind the reason I didn't do it—it's because I would never be able to keep up with the technology, i.e. the expense of this bike and that bike, and, oh, I need the latest thing. I really just didn't want to do it, but I always blamed it on that.

Tim Fulton 26:58That's fair. For people who are considering running a marathon for the first time, or even if they haven't done it in a couple of years, when should training start for them?

Darris Blackford 27:11Yeah, I mean, the marathon, the experts say 18 to 20 weeks. So June, late June, a lot of the training programs are kicking off. June 21, first day of summer, is a Saturday, there's some programs that are starting then. Sometimes people like to get a little bit of an earlier start than that, just to prepare themselves. The half marathon, which is really the larger of our events—it's two-thirds, one-third, we'll have about 10,000 sign up for the half, and 4,000, 5,000 for the marathon. It's also a lot less training. And you can go—I just saw someone had posted, basically, it's all of the excitement without the damage. You can still go and enjoy your afternoon if you do a half. I mean, it's a matter of, what is your goal, what's your accomplishment desire? But I don't like it when people use the word "only." "I'm only doing the half." Oh, you're not only doing the half. "Only" and "slow" are the worst words. "Only the half," or "I'm slow," or "I only did the half marathon." No, it's an accomplishment. And it's funny, it used to be this hardcore mentality of the marathoner, and the training techniques were different. Now it's become—running for the half and the full have become social. We've seen a real change in the whole base of runners, people that are really just looking for the fun side of it. That's why we have 20 local running and walking groups around Columbus—German Village and Short North and Marysville and on and on—all these different groups that have sprung up because people are looking for a community within their hobby.

Tim Fulton 29:15It's a communal experience, or it can be a communal experience.

Darris Blackford 29:19Especially once you experience it as a communal activity. Because if you do it by yourself, that's fine, people enjoy going out for a run, but once you run with other people, it can be more fun. There's a level of accountability. I've been in many running groups, and I know if the people that I run with are out on a Saturday morning—I'm like, I don't want to go, but you end up building an accountability factor. And I think that just gives you more to push yourself for those days maybe you don't want to go. You can learn about the sport, especially if you don't know anything about it. You should never say, I can't do this because I don't know anything about it. Just go to one of these local groups—and a lot of them are free—and just meet people and have fun with it. Nobody started out as an Olympian. And most of us won't.

Tim Fulton 30:14That's fair. I end every interview with the same two questions. What do you think Columbus is doing well, and what do you think Columbus is not doing so well? Normally I ask that you keep it even outside of the subject matter. But what do you think Columbus is doing well?

Darris Blackford 30:35Wow, that's a really good question. I love this city. I've been here since 1991. I was a newspaper reporter at the Dispatch. I covered economic development. I got to see a lot of the changes and things in the city. I really feel that we're doing a great job with our efforts with our parks and our park systems. Our attention—we're not leaving green space behind, and we could have. You go back to places like 161 and Morse Road and all those, when development happened. I don't even know if there is a park on Morse Road anywhere, think about it, until you get out to certain places, not counting Easton and green spaces. But just places like that. The fact that we have places like Park of Roses, Whetstone Park, and Highbanks and the Metro Parks system and the trail system—they're building more and more of these trails for running and walking and hiking, it's phenomenal. And I don't think people that are here appreciate what we have compared to other places around the country with regards to that network. The simplest thing that I don't like is the garbage in this city. What is going on? I don't care if 71 and 315 are national or state highways, they look terrible. And there's no reason. This used to be a much cleaner city, as simple as that. It drives me crazy, because I'm out running and walking all the time, and I see this. It's like, come on, what are we doing? And I don't know what the solution is. I saw something on the news the other day where there's a private company that actually employs people looking for a second chance to go pick up trash and things like that. Great step, but we've got to do more. So those are my thoughts.

Tim Fulton 32:37I will credit you with, those are two unique answers for that question.

Darris Blackford 32:41Yeah. My biggest complaint—I actually wrote them about this—was the elevators at the parking garage at Port Columbus. They were disgusting. That carpeting, I'm like, what is going on here? Just put in tile and then mop it down once a day. And I think they actually improved it for a while. I haven't been there in a while.

Tim Fulton 33:03In my awareness, they're not great.

Darris Blackford 33:08Between all the salt that people track in in the wintertime. So that was my earlier fix for the city.

Tim Fulton 33:13But that's fair. Darris, thanks for your time.

Darris Blackford 33:17Thank you. I appreciate it.

Tim Fulton 33:31Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, and share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite marathon runner. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.