When Race Director Bob Nichols recently began working on the prize money structure for the 2016 Surfing Madonna Beach Run, he realized he had made a serious error. Following the 2015 edition of the race, held October 24 in Encinitas, California, he had mistakenly paid the event’s top finishers, 18 runners in all, twice as much prize money as he intended—a $9,500 mistake.

When Nichols asked the affected athletes to give half the money back, most of them refused, some rudely, according to Nichols. That led him to consult with a lawyer and give the runners options, one of which was settling the matter in court.

After speaking with Runner's World last Monday, reviewing the discussion about the matter on the LetsRun message board, and reflecting further, Nichols decided to let the runners keep the money. In order to prevent his organization, the Surfing Madonna Oceans Project, from taking a financial hit, he decided to repay the $9,500 out of his own pocket.

Ambiguous Wording

Nichols advertised that the race would give out $15,000 in prize money (including masters, team, and costume awards, which were not affected by the error), but he accidentally gave out $24,500. How does something like that happen with no one noticing for more than six weeks? It centered around the language Nichols had used when posting the prize money structure on the event’s website.

What Nichols meant was that the first male and female finisher in the 10-mile race, for example, would receive a combined $1,800—$900 each. But the elite runners who ran the race read it as $1,800 each.

The language was confusing enough that, on the day of the event, a race volunteer looked at the website and wrote out big checks for the prize winners to pose with for double the amount intended.

Nichols made the same error when he wrote the checks he mailed to the prize winners, most of which went out in early November, after he received their W-9s.

Phil Stewart, publisher of the industry newsletter Road Race Management, told Runner’s World that he’s never heard of an error of this nature happening at a road race. He called the manner in which the prize money was listed “very confusing.”

Nichols is the founder and director of the Surfing Madonna Oceans Project; he created the Surfing Madonna Beach Run, which has become the organization’s biggest fundraiser, in 2013. When Nichols realized his error, he worried that it would significantly impact his organization’s ability to do good in the community.

Past race proceeds have funded a surf camp for children with special needs, the purchase of beach wheelchairs, and marine mammal rescue equipment, among other things. Nichols said the race, which had about 3,800 registrants, netted roughly $100,000 in 2015.

Return Requests

When Nichols began calling the race’s elite athletes and asking them to return half of the money, for the most part, the request did not go over well.

“I would say that probably a third of them were really responsive and said, ‘No problem, I get it. I’ve been to your race before and I know what you do in the community and yes, I’m going to write you out a check for the overpaid amount,’" Nichols told Runner’s World last Monday. “The rest, I haven’t been able to get ahold of or they just said, ‘No, I’m not paying the money back.’

“One [elite runner] said, ‘I will take all your prize money and I’m going to laugh in your face, and I’m going to participate in your run next year and I’m going to win the prize money and I’m going to laugh in your face again,’” Nichols said.

According to Nichols, another said, “We are the reason that your run is successful. It’s the elite athletes that make this event happen.”

“I think that’s what kind of set me off. That was the end of it. I was like, ‘These people just don’t care at all,’” Nichols said.

That was when Nichols decided to consult a lawyer who does pro bono work for the Surfing Madonna Oceans Project. The race sent an email that offered the runners three options: pay back 75 percent of the amount they were overpaid immediately, keep 25 percent of it, and receive some free race entries; work out a payment plan with the race; or settle the matter in court.

Matt McElroy, 23, of Poway, San Diego, who makes his living as a professional triathlete and runner, finished third in the 10-mile race and earned $700. He told Runner’s World that, after consulting with his coach and two lawyers, he had no intention of paying the money back to the race.

“I’m an elite athlete who just graduated from college. To be honest, $700 for me goes a long way,” McElroy said. “I understood they were [a] nonprofit trying to help out paraplegic surfers and they were trying to get behind the community…I personally felt like [Nichols] was trying to guilt-trip me by bringing up that he’s a nonprofit organization and that I’m basically taking away from the community and his events. So that just kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

“Once you send a check and it’s cashed, that’s official. If Bob called and said, ‘Hey, would you be interested in giving some of your prize money to charity?’ that would have been a better way of handling it,” McElroy continued. “He might not get all the money back, but maybe some of us might have thrown some money in…I just think he handled the situation kind of the wrong way.”

Regina Lopez, 25, who received $1,000 for finishing second in the 10-mile race, said that paying the money back wasn’t an option for her.

“I just finished college and just got a job three months ago. I don’t have the money to pay back,” Lopez said.

Michael Davila, 25, of Moreno Valley, California, is a professional runner and part-time student who received $500 for finishing third in the 5K race. He said that, although he’ll have to do so in installments, he planned on paying the money back.

“I understand it was a mistake. It was the right thing to do to just pay it back,” Davila told Runner’s World. “It was a human error on his side, but we all make mistakes and sometimes you just need help with the mistakes.”

Change of Course

Last Monday, after reflecting on the situation further, Nichols decided to let the elite runners keep the money. To prevent the Surfing Madonna Oceans Project from being affected by the situation, Nichols decided that he would pay the money back to the organization out of his own pocket.

“I thought [the intended prize money structure] was obvious, but it wasn’t obvious. It wasn’t even obvious to me, and that’s when I made the decision, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m wrong here,’” Nichols said in a follow-up conversation last week. “I realized, ‘This was your mistake, Bob. This is confusing and you need to rectify this.”

Stewart commended Nichols for doing the “honorable thing” by letting the runners keep the money.

“I think the athletes came to the race based on a certain set of assumptions. Those assumptions turned out not to be true, through an innocent [error],” Stewart said. “You could go one step further as far as the runners go and say that if they had truly felt that the first place was only $900, they might have gone to a different race where there was more prize money. I think it’s an unfortunate situation all the way around.”

The Road Ahead

Nichols’ negative interactions with some of the race’s elite athletes made him realize that, in 2016, he wants to put his prize money elsewhere.

“Frankly, it’s left a very bad taste in my mouth. Our elites make up probably a quarter of a percent of our participants and they ask for free entries, they ask for hotels, they ask for travel accommodations, and this is a community event,” Nichols said. “Let’s just concentrate on the people that do make up our event—parents pushing strollers, people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, people wearing costumes. Let’s put the prize money next year towards them.”

Nichols has since posted his 2016 prize money structure, which has the biggest prizes going to the largest teams and costume contest winners. He will award $500 for new course records, but other than that, the most anyone will be able to earn for an individual running performance is $350.

Nichols doesn’t think potentially losing some of the event’s top runners will hurt the popularity of the race.

“[The] people who show up to this event, they don’t know who any of these athletes are,” Nichols said. “Maybe if it’s a Meb [Keflezighi], a Michael Jordan, or some famous athlete shows up, they’ll know who it is. But somebody that was on the varsity team running for Berkeley or something, nobody knows who that is.”

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