Starter Kit. Idea 470 of 500. Cluster 25
Marathon and trail-running events in the hills and the ancient cities, with the medal worth keeping
The mechanism, from the book
The country's best-known export is cricket, and little of the business around it is built at home.
The first step
Map a half-marathon route in one ancient city, or a trail route in the hills, then walk it yourself and time it. Design the medal first, as an object worth keeping, and get a quote for 200 of them from a local brass or metal craftsman. Post the route and the medal to 2 or 3 running clubs abroad and ask for pre-registrations. The count of names at a stated fee is your answer.
- Who pays first
- A runner abroad who collects destination races and will pay the entry fee, the flight and a week's stay for a course nobody else offers.
- What leaves today
- The island's ruins and hills are unpriced as a race course, and the entry fees, the medals and the race-week spending go to events elsewhere.
Ask first
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask what permission a race on public roads needs, and who closes them.
- Central Cultural Fund. Ask whether a route may pass near the ancient sites, and on what terms.
Check before you spend
Confirm permission for the route, medical cover and water on the day, insurance for runners, and the consent of anyone whose land the trail crosses.
Find out these three numbers
- What entry fee would runners pay?
- How many runners would enter a first race?
- What does a medal worth keeping cost to make locally?
A comparison from the book
Zermatt. Chapter Five
"I bought one of those bottles on my first trip there and still have it at home"
Make the medal so good it is kept for years. It carries the place's name home.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.