Great race but the Great South Run is not great value

WRAPPED up like an Alaskan husky musher with so many layers of thermals to take on a Sumo wrestler-like appearance, I remembered why I don't watch too many running races.

A chilling wind was blowing off the Solent to add to the dampness in the air for the Great South Run being staged around the streets of Portsmouth on Sunday.

I've run the 10-mile race before, once in a Lance Armstrong-like and never-to-be-repeated time of 66 minutes, I cantered round dressed the course as Scooby Doo, and one year gingerly completed the last two miles along the seafront from Eastney holding up my shorts after the elastic broke.

This year, though, I joined the thousands of spectators who lined the route for what is one of the most atmospheric and carnival-like running races in the UK - a worthy third behind the London Marathon and its Geordie cousin, the Great North Run.

The one major downside is the entry fee at close to £40, which is simpy excessive and out of proportion to other races which charge half that figure.

Take one look at the Great South Run goodie bag, for example, and you seriously question whether the race offers value for money. The t-shirt wasn't a technical top, in fact it was pretty ordinary. The medal you can pick up for under £1.50 judging by what's on offer from the sports trophy supplier I use, and you have to remember that most of the gifts inside the goodie bag were donated as samples.

Organisers Nova International receive financial support from Portsmouth City Council plus a host of blue riband companies, including Channel 5 who pay for the rights to screen the race - woeful coverage it was too, focussing the vast majority of the 90-minute programme on the elite races, treating the club and charity runners as a quaint sideline.

Some 30,000 runners entered this year's Great South Run, so do the maths because at £40 a pop that's over £1 million in the bank before the first starting gun was fired. The charities also pay a premium for securing entries, and then there are the concession stalls set up outside the Pyramids Centre and on the green by the skatepark - kerching, kerching!

Incredibly, after the race I went to get a burger and a cup of tea from one stand which must have paid a pretty penny for the concession and they weren't serving any drinks because they had no water. What a waste. They were also heavily under-staffed and had a huge queue stacked up behind, many of whom walked away empty-handed once they knew they couldn't get a hot drink.

Of course, for Nova Internatonal, there are the costs of the race infrastructure, notably road closures and policing, but when you consider the vast majority of marshals and race officials are volunteers, you wonder how much of that expenditure is spent on appearance money for the elite athletes, and how much is profit.

Don't get me wrong, I know the guys at Nova reasonably well and they put on great events all over the country. They have inspired a generation of people to take up running and to use their races as a target to reach their goals. You cannot under estimate the pulling power of the Great Run series. I just think the pricing is skewed and only for the London Marathon or those commando-style mud and fire challenge races do you pay a similar sky-high amount.

I'm looking after entries for the Stubbington 10k race in January, the biggest 10k race on the south coast which this year got close to 1,600 entries. We will put up the full signs for sure in December. The top price is £14 for an entry, and £12 for club runners. You get a race mug at the end, and that's it. But still there is the chance to sample the best bacon butties anywhere, and an opportunity to run a picturesque course which skirts the Solent. Far better value for money, to my mind.

I guess the similarity with both the Great South Run and the Stubbington 10k is that both are over subscribed. It is about supply and demand in the end.

The week before the race I toyed with taking part in the Portsmouth race. On eBay, Great South Run entries were selling for well under the £40 mark. I put in a bid for one white wave entry when it stood at a paltry 50p with a cheapskate and derisory offer of £5. Twelve hours later, having forgotten to join the auction, I discovered the race number went for £5.50! Now that is a bargain.

So instead of running I became a spectator with my mate Gary, and son Ross, and yet despite the lousy conditions it was great to be there. I would not have missed it, even though I was itching to run.

You could not help but be inspired with the mass of humanity who passed us - runners of all shapes and sizes, fetched in a variety of garb and fancy dress, all in pursuit of their own impressive goals.

"I'm busting for a pee, but I've got to finish," shouted one lady runner as we stood near the finish line. Others were clearly hurting and could barely jog as they passed South Parade Pier at the end of their gruelling journey. We saw one guy dressed in a full-scale diving suit who had taken four days to run the 10 mile distance in stages. It was a magnificent spectacle.

The elite athletes came and went, and headed off to their pampered VIP suites. For me the race was all about the club athletes and charity runners who embody the amazing spirit of the event. Where would our country be without the charities and the legions of fund-raisers who raise millions of pounds from events such as the Great South Run to support basic and essential services which should ordinarily be provided by central Government?

Gary shared the train into Portsmouth & Southsea station with a number of runners; one of whom was a fellow Stubbington Green club runner who sneaked a couple of cigarettes before the race and then amazingly ran close to one hour for 10 miles. That is ludicrous, and the guy hardly trains!

Then there were the thousands of runners venturing into unchartered territory to raise money for charity.

One friend, Yvonne, was raising money for Diabetes UK on behalf of her young daughter who suffers with type 1 diabetes. The furthest she had run previously was eight miles, but on Sunday she stuck courageously to the task to finish in 1 hour 47 minutes - a good hour behind the winner, but a darn good effort!

Yvonne had been as nervous as a kitten before the race as the frequent pre-race toilet stops testified. Yet the smile on her face at the finish was broad and proud; the satisfying smile of a job well done, enjoying the relief at completing a challenge set a year earlier in a race where the feelgood factor was both tangible and immense.

"That was absolutely brilliant. I'll definitely be back next year," she said. Start saving now, Yvonne!