No matter how much everyone talks about the negative impacts of banditing a race, there will always be those who decide they should do it. Following tips from runners on Reddit and a bit of investigating on our end, we’ve found a popular Austin-based run club that had multiple runners accused by the runners of Reddit of banditing the 2024 Austin Marathon.
Rawdawg Run Club is a new yet fast-growing group based in Austin, Texas. Since launching in early February, the Saturday morning run club has amassed over 50,000 followers on Instagram.
With running experiencing a major boom in popularity, many new running groups are popping up, targeting GenZ’s who have just picked up the sport. These popular groups use smart social strategies to garner a massive overnight following and some now have hundreds of runners turn up to their weekly group runs.
While it is great that these new running groups are helping others get active, they often lack any clear leadership, code of conduct, or policies to keep runners and the surrounding community safe.
For example, the Rawdawg Run Club’s website doesn’t provide any sort of suggestions for new runners, or other info, but is instead just a landing page to sell their branded T-shirts.
So far in the club’s short life, they haven’t left the most positive mark on everyone in the Austin running community, according to locals in the Austin running scene. At least 10 runners from the club, some who claim to be founders of the group (as per their Instagram bios), appear to have run the Austin Marathon without paying the entry fee or, as some have suggested, perhaps only jumped in mid-event and ran part of the race in order to collect the finisher’s medal. They then leveraged their finish on social media to promote themselves and their group, posing with finisher’s medals, popping sparkling wine around their branded T (which is sold out on their site).
The incident first came to light after one Reddit user shared their experience of running a marathon on a treadmill since they couldn’t afford the entry fee to participate in the Austin Marathon. Being from the Austin area, they knew of the Rawdawg Run Club and decided to compare their time to the group’s runners. But after a bit of IG, Strava and finishing time searching, only two Rawdawg Run Club runners were found in the official results list.
Of the entire group, only Rawdawg members Clayton Allen and Jason Steinburg had entries recorded on the results page. Allen ran a respectable 3:20:59, while Steinburg picked up a DNF, although he posted that he ran a 4:23 on his Instagram.
Following the initial Reddit discussion, we found a celebratory Austin Marathon post on the Rawdawg Run Club Instagram. We cross-matched the names of the seven runners tagged in their Austin Marathon Instagram post with the official results. We found none of the seven tagged runners in the official results. Additionally, the photos show none of the runners wearing a bib, but each of them celebrating with a medal after crossing the line.
“Yup, it seems from all their race pictures that they didn’t have a bib during the entire race. Typically wouldn’t care, until I saw they got medals. That’s just selfish as people who actually paid and may finish later may end up without a medal, such as what happened in the 2023 Boston Marathon,” Redditor Time-Dimension-9239 noted.
“It makes this group look even worse. God. They’re horrible. Had a friend end up running with them for a hot second today since he fell behind in our group and he said it was hell,” Legitimate-Lock-6594 added.
The runners accused of banditing the race from that post include founders Darren Belasa, Noah Rolette, and Ian Fonz. Alongside them were Sage Bender, Khenrab Norgay, Mason Kass, and Lukas Pakter, whose level of involvement with Rawdawg Run Club is not clear.
In another Instagram post featuring the Rawdawg Run Club, three additional runners were tagged: Ethan Kwon, Tin Nguyen (founder), and Sean Paterson. None of the three runners were found in the official results.
Local Complaints and Other Potentially Fraudulent Accomplishments by Rawdawg Founders
On top of banditing the Austin Marathon, the Rawdawg Run Club has received criticism from others within the Austin running community. Many online users report being forced off the side of the path or having to stop running completely to let the massive group pass by on their Saturday run, with no consideration for other runners on Austin’s popular network of multi-use trails.
“Absolutely irresponsible how much they were taking over the trail. I was lucky to be going over the Lamar pedestrian bridge and was able to scoot by, but they were definitely forcing people off to the side and to stop to wait for their massive group to pass,” robman17 noted of their behaviour.
Rawdawg’s co-founders have shaped their brand by documenting themselves confronting difficult challenges and seeking to be “the person you want to become.” But this message is often contradicted by them pointing out in videos and posts that they didn’t even bother training before attempting a significant athletic challenge.
The only problem is that it appears many of their athletic achievements either didn’t happen or were significantly overstated.
Ian Fonz, a Rawdawg co-founder, a YouTuber, model and influencer, has recently publicly talked about running the 2023 Honolulu Marathon and the BPN 50-Mile Ultra on his channels; no records of him running these events could be found on the respective results pages.
Rawdawg Run Club provided Ian’s legal name, Ian Fonville, and with that we were able to find his official result for the 2023 Honolulu Marathon. Fonville completed the race with a time of 3:55:13, placing 780th overall and 63rd in his age group.
This isn’t the first time attention-seeking runners with significant Instagram followings have bandited a major race. Not long before this incident, influencer Alexa Curtis was found to have raced the Brooklyn Half Marathon bandit as part of a social media plot to gain media attention.
Rawdawg Run Club Respond To Austin Marathon Bandit Accusations
The four founders of Rawdawg Run Club, Ian Fonville, Noah Rolette, Darren Belasa, and Tin Nguyen responded to our request for comment on Thursday, June 20, to share their perspective on the situation.
“We own up to running the full marathon in Austin without paying. We messed up. We were new runners to the marathon scene and didn’t see a harm in running it. We know now that it affects multiple parties negatively and will never do it again nor have we done it since. We met with the owner of the Austin marathon, Jack Murray, June 18, 2024 to make amends and we handled the issue internally.”
“The goal of Rawdawg is to change the perspective of running for new runners so that they associate running with community and endorphins rather than punishment or only purely for fat loss and being “skinny”. The run club itself is free and has always been free for anyone to show up. We give out free drinks and snacks from brands who want to supply us with product to give to the club. T shirts are only sold online and no profits are made at run club. This is for the community and will always be for the community.”
Rawdawg Run Club was contacted Thursday morning (June 13). The athletes involved were contacted Monday afternoon (June 17). They collectively responded to our request for comment on Thursday, June 20.
Rawdawg Run Club has since deleted their Austin Marathon posts on Instagram.
The Austin Marathon was also contacted for confirmation of their registration but has not yet responded.
Why Is Banditing A Big Deal?
Banditing a race is often perceived as a victimless crime, however, it’s impacts reach far and wide, affecting both participants and race organizers:
- Resource Allocation: Races allocate resources such as nutrition, medical aid, medals, and space on the course based on the number of registered participants. Bandits can strain these resources, potentially depriving paying participants of support.
- Safety Concerns: Race organizers plan safety measures and emergency responses according to the number of registered runners. Unregistered participants can disrupt these plans, making it harder to account for everyone and ensure their safety.
- Financial Impact: Race entry fees often cover the costs of permits, security, medical support, and other logistics. By not paying, bandits undermine the financial stability of the event and may increase costs for future participants.
- Fairness: Banditing is unfair to those who have paid the entry fee. Paying participants have contributed to the event’s funding and deserve the benefits and recognition that come with official entry, including timing, medals, and other perks.
- Permits and Legal Issues: Many races require permits based on a specific number of participants. Exceeding this number due to bandits can violate permit conditions, jeopardizing the event’s ability to be held in the future.
- Insurance and Liability: Race organizers typically have insurance that covers registered participants. Bandits are not covered by this insurance, which can create legal and financial complications in case of injury or other incidents.
- Course Congestion: Bandits add to the number of runners on the course, contributing to congestion and potentially affecting the race experience for registered participants, especially in narrow or crowded sections.
- Event Integrity: Race organizers work hard to provide a well-organized and enjoyable experience for participants. Banditing undermines their efforts and can damage the reputation and integrity of the event.
Rawdawgs Run Club sound and act like a bunch of arrogant A-holes.
Why would anyone want to be associated with them?
As a runner I am embarrassed by their behaviour, their lack of respect for other people, other runners and quite frankly themselves.
If they just want to sell t-shirts then stick with that however they should change their name to reflect who they really are.
I agree. And I call bullsh** to their response “we’re new to marathons and didn’t see any harm in running it”. They knew exactly what they were doing and thought what all Marathon Bandits think, who’s gonna find out??? And like all other Marathon Bandits, they got busted.
I live next to them at the exact halfway point of the marathon- good starting point for sure 🙂