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.
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.