Judging by the forum posts I'm looking at runners are very serious about this and I don't feel like being subjected to smug ire from classist elitist assholes. The course in question is 95% public sidewalks and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $75 for a t-shirt, a number, and some snacks (in other words I don't intend to partake in any of them) and I don't even care about placing.
Maybe if I email the organizers and beg they'll give me a fake number so I don't get bullied or something I don't know. Has anyone done this before?
Edit: Thanks everyone you've been very helpful <3 I'm going to email the organizers and try to get a deal and if that doesn't work I'm going to just go for it. Maybe throw in $5 if theres a donation.
If everyone is going to have a shitty attitude and look down their noses at me then there's no point in running that day. It's a social event.
Sorry I thought you just wanted to run the course for like fitness or whatever
If you want the whole experience there's a good shot if you email the organizers they might let you pick up a discounted ticket or something, they'll have extra shirts and stuff it's not like it would be a big burden
I promise you that nobody will give you a hard time or look down their nose. Like another commenter mentioned, the only real difference is that you won't be able to be in a corral at the start line of the race without a number, otherwise you can just run the race route like normal.
Runners in general tend to be a super positive bunch of people in my experience since the entirety of it is based around achieving personal goals. Unless they're marathon qualifiers, road races are almost exclusively charity runs anyway.