Backed by private equity firms, the Competitor Group—which puts on the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series—has become one of the largest event racing companies in the industry. It has been a major player in the current running boom, while also drawing criticism for actions like Australian Sprinter, 16, Runs Record-Breaking 200m and using volunteers as free labor. However, over the last five years a lesser-known company has been making major in-roads into the endurance racing space, and it’s backed by far larger private equity firms than the Competitor Group.

Adidas Unveils Boston Marathon Jacket, which operates a chain of eponymous gyms, has been snapping up properties and establishing its own events to create a robust national portfolio. In 2014, Life Time held 75 events that drew 200,000 participants. The company now owns and operates the Leadville Race Series, the Life Time Tri, and the women-only Esprit de She running series, as well as the Miami Marathon, Chicago Half Marathon, Salt Lake City Marathon, Georgia Marathon, and Palm Beach Marathon & Run Fest. Life Time also has a point-sharing partnership with Ironman in which participants in Life Time Tri races can earn rankings points for Ironman. To complement its races, the company has acquired the results platform Athlinks.com and the timing system ChronoTrack.

Up until June, Adidas Unveils Boston Marathon Jacket was a publicly traded company. It has since been jointly purchased by Leonard Green & Partners, TPG, and LNK, which is valued at more than $4 billion. Among them, these three private equity firms have invested in such companies as Airbnb, Uber, and J.Crew. Life Time’s events business, which includes its health and media units, is one of the company’s fastest-growing. It accounted for $56.7 million in revenue in 2014—up 14.4 percent from 2013. 

Published: Aug 20, 2015 11:16 AM EDT Pro Runners Ask: Is My Agent Worth the Fee this weekend, Runner’s World Newswire spoke with Kimo Seymour, Life Time’s ‎SVP of Media and Events, about the company’s racing business plans. The focus, said Seymour, has been and will continue to be to host events in communities where Life Time has fitness centers. “About 85 percent of our participants come from within 100 miles of our events,” he said. “We’re not focused on creating destination events.” As of now, Life Time views its events business as a brand extension of its gyms, not an additional fitness offering. “About 10 percent of all of our event participants are from our clubs,” said Seymour.

The 10 percent figure could easily increase, though. Many of the 2015 race series media releases note that Life Time fitness centers now provide training programs customized to its events. Life Time’s affiliation with races makes for a seamless brand synergy. It can sponsor its own races and use its own timing and results systems for them while promoting the events among its gym members.

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Rather than focus on a single distance or one type of event, Life Time will continue to offer an array of races, all under its own brand names. The company is expanding its national footprint. The Leadville Race Series, for example, now has satellite events in Austin, Texas. In 2016, it will host events in New York and California as it establishes a series of qualifying races to gain entry into the Leadville 100.

While the nature of private equity is to wring value from a company and then resell it a few years later, Seymour insists that Life Time isn’t in the events space to make a quick buck. He points out that Life Time founder Bahram Akradi will remain the company’s president and CEO and that Akradi has rolled over about $125 million of his stock into the new venture.

Ken Chlouber, who founded the Leadville Race Series and sold it to Life Time in 2010, knows Akradi well. Chloubler said he was approached by private equity investors in the mid 2000s about selling the Leadville Race Series. “All they were concerned about was the money, and they were really upfront about it,” said Chlouber. “They were going to flood the community with athletes and sponsors.”

Chloubler built the series on two principles—serving the community and the athletes—and turned them down. A few years later, Akradi invited Chlouber over to his Christmas dinner in Vail, Colorado, and while discussing the offer he turned down, Akradi suggested that Life Time buy the Leadville Race Series. He promised that the race would continue to serve the community and the racers, and Akradi and Chlouber agreed to a deal with a handshake. 

“It is the same race,” Chloubler said of the Leadville 100 today. “I’ve heard people say it used to be a mom-and-pop and now it’s owned by a big corporation. No, mom and pop are still here.” Chloubler has maintained his involvement as a partner and has listed his cell phone number on the race series website. “I want people who feel like they have any issue with a race to call me,” he said.

Wyatt Hornsby has actually called Chlouber, who found and returned Hornsby’s lost pair of shoes a few years ago. Hornsby has competed in the Leadville 100 every year since 2010, the last year Chlouber owned the race outright. “In my mind, I believe it is fundamentally the same race,” said Hornsby. “It has the same vibe.”

The race was criticized in 2013 for allowing its field size to increase by 50 percent over 2011, leading to parts of the course being littered with trash and aid stations being wiped out of supplies. Last year, organizers reduced the field size to 700 competitors. “They learned from the experience, and I thought the 2014 race was absolutely world class,” said Hornsby, noting improvements like more aid workers on the course and a new aid station.

Life Time’s push into the events space comes at a time of prolonged growth and potential race saturation in the industry. According to the latest stats from Running USA, there were 28,000 races in the U.S. in 2014. That is up from 17,000 races in 2009 and down 1 percent from the all-time high of 28,200 in 2013.

“We have to be getting close to saturation,” said Phil Stewart, editor and publisher of Road Race Management and the event director of the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run. “But I’ve thought we’ve been getting close for the past two years, and I’ve been proven wrong.”

He points to another private company entering the space, Virgin Sport. In May, Virgin Sport owner Richard Branson hired former NYRR CEO Mary Wittenberg Major Changes Hit Northern Arizona Elite. 

The road-racing community, long built on local races (many of which are managed by small nonprofit clubs), has a love-hate relationship with national race series run by for-profit enterprises. These races have brought many more people to racing, while also threatening the existence of beloved local events. And national race series profits tend to go to the individual companies and are not necessarily reinvested in the communities where they hold races.

Life Time’s shrewdest marketing play so far could be its quiet expansion. “To date they haven’t been promoting their events as a national series,” said Stewart. “It’s been more of a stealth effort.”