A Taiwanese sporting-goods distributor recently posted on social media an announcement titled 《2025 Forward to the Top 100｜Pacer Open Recruitment》, hoping to recruit pacers to assist female runners aiming to enter the Taiwan women's Top 100 via the Taipei Marathon. Because this year eight female runners will attempt to enter the Taiwan women's Top 100 at the Taipei Marathon, they are openly recruiting two pacers.

The women's Top 100 can be regarded as the top 100 Taiwanese female marathoners of all time; based on current information, the 100th-place time is 3 hours 10 minutes 50 seconds.

So, the recruitment criteria in this announcement include:

1. Must have the qualification for 2025 Taipei Marathon full marathon category;

2. In the past three years (2022-2025), have at least one completed full marathon result within 2 hours 55 minutes;

3. Be able to help 8 female participants at the 2025 Taipei Marathon (December 21) run under 3 hours 05 minutes;

4. Attend a 30 km group run on November 30, 2025;

5. Candidates with race pacing experience preferred;

Perhaps most eye-catching is that the two pacers selected in this call will receive NT$10,000 (equivalent to RMB 2,329) reward as well as a voucher from the brand's official website worth NT$3,000.

Once this news broke it quickly sparked lively discussion among runners, and made everyone rethink the value of pacers and the issue of pacer fees.

Do you think it's reasonable for pacers to charge fees?