Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 121, August 2019 | Page 33

would chalk any unpaid entries down to ‘advertising’ and Running Mann Inc. would
run at a slightly higher loss than usual.
The Vetting Process
I wanted to focus on the trust angle as well as keep things as admin-light as
possible. Therefore, I decided to do very basic ‘credit checks.’ For example, if the
person had run Comrades before, that was good enough for me. If the person was
a novice and they had a social media profile, I had a quick look for a running photo,
and if I couldn’t find one, I just asked for some evidence showing that they were a
runner, like an online race result. This was really just to make sure that a non-runner
would not infiltrate the pool of trustworthiness, get an entry and then sell it later
once substitutions opened.
The response was pretty amazing. The requests came in thick and fast, from
runners of all abilities from all around the country, and were representative of
South African demographics. However, I realised during the process that the one
drawback with using social media to ‘advertise’ is that it excludes those who are
probably the most needy, but a few “I know a guy” referral requests came through
as well. Based on the number of requests for help, I decided to increase the
number of entry loans to 10 runners (and my exposure to R6,000).
reach their dream of running Comrades. It would be amazing if one of the runners
we sponsored is able to inspire a future champion to start running.” Echoing his
sentiments, executive director (and well-known competitive multi-stage mountain
biker) Hayden Simpson, adds, “As a proudly South African company with a history
of supporting SA athletes, we felt that this opportunity to support deserving SA
runners could not be missed.”
On top of this, I received contributions from a few anonymous donors who
were keen to help, but did not want the admin of finding entrants, vetting their
credibility and processing entries, and thus, suddenly flush with cash, I changed
the parameters of the experiment to be a ‘subsidised entry.’ Sponsors would
cover R400 of the entry fee and the runner just needed to pay me back R200,
which seemed a good compromise to test the trustworthiness of the ultra-running
community, whilst maximising the amount of runners who could be assisted.
I told those who had already paid that they only needed to pay me back R200,
as Galileo Capital and Galileo Risk had covered the rest. A couple of the runners
said their only problem was cashflow and still paid back the full R600, despite the
subsidised entry offer.
I did not want to capture the physical entry myself, as this requires having a lot of
personal information on hand, and if something went wrong or was incorrect, I did
not want to be to blame for someone missing out on running. Therefore, once the
entry was fully captured and ready for payment, the requester let me know and I
would then log onto the Comrades entry portal and process the entry payment on
my credit card.
Importantly, I did not want to ‘play God’ deciding who were the worthiest runners
for the entry loans, so I simply kept a record of the order in which requests
came through, with the first 10 being ‘guaranteed.’ I soon had a waiting list, but
told those runners to enter anyway, as someone else might not get their entry
completed in time.
The Deviants
During the whole experiment, I only had one ‘chancer.’ I was limiting the offer to
online entry payments, since I could then ensure that the money went directly
towards the Comrades entry. One guy was insistent that he had to do his own
manual entry and asked me to “Transfer R400 as I already have the other R200.”
Something didn’t smell right, and when I did a bit of digging, I found that he already
had a fully paid entry, but obviously wanted to get in on the R400 subsidy. The
irony is that if he had told me this instead of being devious, I probably would have
transferred R400 to his account.
Changing the Experiment
The social media posts attracted quite a bit of attention and a friend, best-selling
author and financial media personality Warren Ingram, inspired by a rare bout of
philanthropy from my side, offered to donate R3,000 for Comrades entries from
Galileo Capital, where he is a director. That prompted sister company, Galileo Risk,
to respond with a matching offer of a further R3,000 in sponsorship.
Warren explains why they were keen to jump in and help: “Running is probably
the most inclusive sport in South Africa. Our hope is that this sponsorship from
a relatively small South African business like ours, might help some runners to
Comrades threw their own devious curveball on day six of the entry process. I had
been frantically dealing with calls, e-mails and messages from desperate
33