That got your attention.
Ted’s Run for Literacy would love to offer free registrations but alas, we cannot. We remain committed to our mission of eliminating the cycle of childhood poverty and our goal of hosting a Class A+ running experience for all levels of competitiveness. This costs money.
Free doesn’t purchase running shoes, tee-shirts, shorts, and hygiene kits for under resourced children attending CanU. Free doesn’t buy a laptop computer and state of the art, early literacy programming opportunities for the grassroots inner-city Learn and Play program. Free doesn’t teach intergenerational traumatized adults how to interact with their children in ways that build hope and promote resilience.
TRL offers competitive registration fees. The average adult early bird registrations fee for 10 km events in Winnipeg is $43.25. We charge $40. The average for 5km events is $29.57 while we charge $30. We offer MRA membership discounts, teacher packages, senior and youth discounts, extremely generous school discounts, and when asked, we happily gift free registrations for community raffles.
It’s impossibly difficult to compete against free registrations, but that’s exactly what we’re facing. lululemon athletica recently announced -out of the blue- they are hosting a 5km running event on September 29, the same day as TRL. They offer free registrations, free breakfasts, free medals, and other free perks. They will cap their event at about 540 registrants. This event is not sanctioned by MRA nor was it on anyone’s radar until mid-July.
Yup, it’s hard to compete with free.
In fairness, lululemon has come clean. They have apologized to the TRL Board claiming their inexperience in hosting running event is the reason for the conflict. lululemon has promised not to hold their event on the same day as TRL in 2020 and they will consult with MRA for future events. We respect lululemon for owning their blunder and their commit to positive action.
We at Ted’s Run for Literacy hope we have won your respect in our nine years of providing a Gold Standard running event for all abilities. We hope you will continue to support the little race that could in our mission to make the world a better place for children living in poverty.
It’s been said ‘the big print giveth and the small print taketh away’. Free is a mighty big word. I encourage you to be sceptical of the big print and wary of the small print. Sometimes the small print is so small it’s not even visible to the human eye.
You’ll find the true cost of free buried tightly within the small print.
(and don’t forget…we have cake, free cake)
It’s a good day to be alive.
Mike
Ted's Run for Literacy 
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