How To Put On A Race In Your Community
Results
For less than a hundred you can use the pop-sickle stick method. If you use race numbers with tear off tags at the bottom you will need a large sheet of foam or soft material from the lumberyard and a rigid material like plywood to put it against. You will also need a pad of notebook paper and several pens. If doing this outside in cold weather ink pens will not write and text written by cold fingers is hard to read anyway. You could use a car with the heater on if nothing else is available. In the notebook ahead of time list your age groups for both men and women, for each category list the number of awards and later put the persons name beside these numbers. The results person will scan the results board and find the age groups awards and write down those names. The soft material is necessary for tacking the tear off portion of the runners bib numbers. Use a tacking gun, there is no reason to make it more work than necessary. These should put up on the foam sheet in the order that each runner crosses the finish line.
Here are some race results boards leaning
against a fence. They have used a lightweight
ridged board and carpet tape or other
double-sided tape instead of stapling the
tear off portion of the bib numbers.
This is why you want to take them off the spindle from the bottom, if you take all of them off and take them take from the bottom one at time you run the risk of dropping them and losing the order each runner crossed the finish line. If you had a finish line person write down the bib number of each person as they cross the finish line, you would be protected against someone dropping a spindle of tags and losing the order but this is a lot of work.
You can have one person filling out the sheet with age groups while another staples them up as they are brought in from the finish line.Whatever system you use it should be tested ahead of time.
If you use a Chronomix you could also match up the printed tapes with times to also get each runners time, but this is an added amount of work
Awards and Trophies
There should be three overall awards each for both men and women. Awards are most often presented to the first three to five places of best times in five to ten year age groups. For example in the group of runners in the 30 to 35 ages there would be a first, second, third place trophies. This is done for both male and female runners. Experience with your particular race is the best guide. Some races may have five awards in men’s 35 to 39 because there are so many. They may only be two or three in the 19 and below because they are so few. At the top end you may have 60 and above. You will find quite a lot in the men 50 to 55 and fewer in the women are 50 to 59, so you can set up your groups accordingly. Some just have all 10-year age groups. Be sure to put them the entry blank so people know ahead of time. Also be sure to order these well ahead of time so that they will ready for race day. You may want to use your local phone book to find a source as they may be cheapest but be sure to get more prices as they can vary greatly.
T-shirts
Cornbelt Running Club trailer used to store
and carry supplies
There are usually t-shirts given to the runners, which have the race name, some artwork from the race and logo printed on them. Running clubs usually have their favorite source of these to get the best prices. Race directors usually charge more for race day registration than they charge those who send their entry blanks early. Occasionally clubs will give out hats, bags or socks instead, but for your first race you should give out shirts giving credit to the sponsors so they will want to sponsor your race next year. This should also be taken care of well in advance to ready for race day. As with the awards these should be ordered well in advance so they can be ready for race day and get several prices also.
