Properly Managing Your Race Course
January 19, 2012
I ran two 5Ks in 2010 that were close to a tenth of a mile to short, is measuring a race course really that difficult? If you advertise your race as being five kilometers, make it 3.1 miles.
First let’s talk about measuring the race course, if you’re using a race course that has already been USATF certified such as Denver’s City Park or Washington Park then your job is a bit easier. However, just because a course is USATF certified doesn’t mean that the course you laid out is the exact distance, this is what happened at the Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in 2009. The course was measured properly but not laid out correctly.
If you’re tinkering around with a race course, your best bet is to us either www.mapmyrun.com or Google Map Pedometer. This is a great place to start and you can outline the course that you want to utilize. Once you have the course in mind you might want to consider having your course USATF certified, in that case you’ll have to pay someone.
If you don’t want to pay to have your course certified, then you’re going to have to measure it yourself. Now before you get in your Honda Civic and reset that odometer, let’s look at a few other options. The easiest way to measure the course and to reach “close enough” proximity would be to use a GPS running watch, which are generally within 1-3% accuracy and my experience is that they are almost always longer than a certified course. If you don’t have a GPS device find a runner who has one and ask to borrow it, in my book that’s the minimum that you have to do for measuring a course. Don’t simply use www.mapmyrun.com or your cars odometer.
Once you have the course measured, now comes the important part, marking the course. I always tell race directors that I work with that you have to dummy proof the race course. What looks obvious to you does not look obvious to someone who is racing with their heart beating at close to maximum capacity.
Course Marking 101 Tips:
• If your race course is USATF certified, know your map. Don’t wait until race morning to look at it for the first time.
• Know your race course. Even if your race is at City Park or Wash. Park go out to the course a week or two before the race and run/walk the course. Make sure there are no potentially dangerous obstacles or things that will impact the distance such as new construction. Also take this time to know exactly where the mile markers should be placed so that you can place them properly on race morning.
• Mile markers – have them and make sure they are placed properly.
• Use arrows and pylon cones to designate turns and decision points. Use chalk or spray paint (not on roads) when you can.
• Place course marshals at key decision points and where traffic control is needed.
• If you’re the race director, it’s pretty difficult to setup the course on race morning. Do NOT rely on volunteers to setup the course unless you can 100% trust them to show up and to preview the course before the race. Another option is to pay someone to set the course up for you, it’s too important to mess up. Volunteers have good intentions but they are not the most reliable as they have no skin in the game.
• Have someone who knows the race course lead the runners on a bicycle. If you can spare another cyclist, have them lead the top female runner. By simply keeping the lead runner on course you can greatly reduce the likelihood of other runners going of course.
• Just because the police offered to have a lead vehicle, that does not mean they properly know the course. I know of many races where the lead police officer on a motorcycle took all of the runners of course. Once again, have someone on a lead bike who knows the course.
• Properly mark the start and finish area.
What You Should Know About Race Logos
December 21, 2011
Clean, Simply, Stylish - Great Logo
I’m going to let you in on a secret. At RunColo we send out a monthly e-blast where upcoming races can advertise their event. I’ve gotten good, really good at being able to pick out which races will have the most click rates. You might think its name recognition or the description of the event, yes those things help, but the number one factor is the logo design. Does the logo capture the reader’s attention, if it does that generates a click. If you create a flyer or a postcard for your race and place it in a local running store the same logic applies, your race flyer will be sitting there competing with all of the other races, will the customer pick up your voucher?
It’s common for races to cut cost when creating a race logo. They hire a friend to design a logo or they simply grab a photo off the Internet or even worse from Clip Art. Spend a hundred or two hundred dollars and get a logo that is professionally done. The ROI is positive.
As they say on Madison Avenue, ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression.” When I see a weak logo, my first thought is that if they don’t care about their logo how much are they going to care about their race? Yes, I am generalizing, but that’s what people do.
Another pet peeve of mine is a lot of races that benefit children will have a contest where the children get a chance to design a logo and the winner is used for marketing and for the race t-shirt. I’m not a fan of cute; I’m a fan of professionalism. Everyone loves art work from their kids or kids that they know, but I’m not interested in having a crayon drawn logo on a race shirt and I can assure you that those shirts go straight to Goodwill. If it’s one of my own kids, I make an exception.
Most races look at the race t-shirt as an obligation. They buy the cheapest cotton t-shirt they can find and slap a generic logo on there. Look at the race t-shirt as future advertising, advertising for next year’s race. Why spend $4-$6 on a shirt that no one wants, instead put some effort into the logo so that people will wear that shirt and your race will be exposed to future runners.
If you’re a race director get that permit and then start working on the logo, it’s money well spent.
Simplifying Packet Pickup on Race Day
December 6, 2011
Registration Table at Fans on the Field 2011
Anyone who has run a race has incurred the agony of showing up on race morning and getting in line to pick up your bib and chip and wondering why the pre-registration lines are so unevenly distributed. You’re in a line with 20 other runners and you look over at the S-Z table and notice the volunteer running the table on their iPhone with not a runner in sight. Why does this always happen?
Before becoming a full time race timer, I was a business analyst and one thing that I loathe are bottlenecks. You don’t need a black belt in Six Sigma to reduce congestion on race day but you will have to do some basic math.
One simple rule of data analysis is to look at the data before you make a decision. However a lot of race directors make the mistake of breaking out the registration tables by the alphabet and not by how the runners who have registered fall within the alphabet.
Here is the alpha breakout from the 2000 census, first letter of the last name:
US Census Alpha Breakout by Last Name
If a race director broke out the pre-registration table into halves, the above chart shows the participant distribution. Using data from the 2000 census this would create a scenario where 63% of the race day participants are going to the A-M table and the other 37% are going to the N-Z table.
What we recommend is analyzing your pre-registration information and assigning the breakouts according to the actual percentages. Utilizing the census data we would look at the breakout and find the point that allows us to most evenly distribute the participants over two tables. The larger the race the more tables and breaks you’ll want to create.
Alpha Breakout by Actual Percentages of Last Name
A lot of people with the last name beginning in M! Thus by creating alpha breaks of A-L and M-Z, we were able to distribute the breakout to 52%/48%, which will help alleviate bottlenecks on race day and create a smoother race day experience for the racers and volunteers.
This is a basic example, but carry this logic forward if you’re breaking your pre-registration tables into thirds, fourths, etc. Don’t rely on the census date, look at your data before assigning the alpha breakouts.
Gun Time or Net Time?
November 30, 2011
Turkey Trot 5K 2011 - Photo by www.pikespeaksports.us
After timing large races, we often get a few questions from runners asking why results are not posted by chip time and instead by gun time. Isn’t that the whole point of chip timing? First let’s clarify a few things. Gun time is the time elapsed between when the race starts (gun goes off) and when the participant crosses the finish line. Chip time or net time is the time the person crosses the start line mats and crosses the finish line mat; chip time will always be less than gun time.
When races are sanctioned by the USATF and for prize money awards, gun time is always used for results and rankings. If the race is a not a USATF event, then it is up to the race director to decide if gun time or chip time should be used for results and awards.
At Colorado Race Timing we default to gun time scoring unless the race director request that chip time be used instead. The logic is that a race is a race to the finish line and not a time trial, which it becomes when one uses net time.
At the Turkey Trot 5k in Colorado Springs (2011), Carl Arnold tossed in a kick at the finish to pass Kenny Foster to become the second person to cross the line, Kenny ended up taking third. However, Kenny actually had a faster net time than Carl and we are talking by thousandths of a second. Thus if we had the results done by chip time, Carl would have thrown in that surge to pass Kenny all for naught and even though he was the second person to cross the finish line the results would have had him in third.
It also applies to individuals competing for age group awards, check out this video. This video comes from the Fans on the Field 10K which had over 3,000 participants. In the video you can see Jay Survil throwing in a kick to pass Greg Diamond and winning the 50-55 age groups. Now had we calculated results on chip time, Greg would have won the division.
As a runner, I can vouch that if I got outkicked to the finish line that I would not want to win the age group award based on chip time – the effort should be rewarded accordingly and you’re racing the person and not the clock. In fact Jay told me that at another race he ran this summer they did results by chip time and the same thing happened, but this time he wasn’t awarded the age group victory even though he crossed the finish line before his age group competitor. Jay told me that he brought the issue up with the timers and they were not aware of the USATF rule.
Most small races that we time this issue doesn’t even come up as the results and standings are the same, be they chip or gun time. It’s only in larger races where this becomes an issue and questions arise as it can often take minutes for those at the back of the pack to reach the start line.
This was first the lesson in Race Timing 101; look for future blog post where we talk the ins and outs of timing, race directing, course management and logistics 101.