Snail wrote:The exception is road racing, and increasingly they have to get permission for road closures, and potentially pay for policing or stewarding.
For the big races (several thousand runners) that may be true - can you imagine holding the London Marathon without road closures? - but not for the many smaller ones with just a few hundred; they usually have marshals to direct the runners to one side of the road and advise them about whether to cross, though they aren't allowed to stop traffic, so we're generally told. None of my club's races have road closures other than for the start (and in one case the finish, which is in the same place), our stewards are all volunteers, and I don't believe we receive any help from the police (although we used to, and I think had to pay).