Hello Fellow Race Directors, In this edition we share with you some experiences when a race timing systems goes bad. It makes for a great read. I'm sure all race directors have experienced some aspects of this type of problem. As 2003 winds down we would like to remind you again of some of the more effective ways you can be using the web to promote your event in 2004. We have just re-introduced our Cool Running on-line apparel store with some great shopping season specials. Have a look at www.mypremiumstore.net/coolrunning/store.html and click on the "specials and closeouts" links for the holiday deals. When The Timing Goes Bad You have heard the saying that in life timing is everything. Well nothing could be closer to the truth when it comes to road racing. If the timing, or scoring, for an event should go south then as director you surely are going to hear about it. Runners want their times and they want them now! Unfortunately occasionally things do go wrong - equipment fails, electricity goes out or the registration gets messed up. In today's world of posting results on the Internet you can bet that your results will come under scrutiny. So what do you do when there is a problem with timing? Recently a local timing companies' chip system fail during the peak time of a fairly large race. Before the error was detected, hundreds of runners had crossed the finish. The owner of the company posted a notice with the results explaining what happened and asked runners to help reconstruct the results by sending in their times. For the most part runners were receptive and understood the unfortunate situation. Within a few weeks most of the results were restored and posted. Another instance occurred recently when the person handing out the pre-registered bibs did not hand them to the right entrants. As a result, many of the pre-register runners were running with other people's bib numbers. Realizing what had happened, the timing company posted a sign with the results asking that errors be reported to the timing van. Enough of the runners did and the award ceremony went off without disruption. Many years ago, prior to computerized results, I was at an event where several stringers of pull tags got mixed up. The mix up was so severe that the club organizing the event could only produce the top 150 of an 1100 person race. The race director was understandably upset, but he did not let the situation get the best of him. He immediately radioed the beer tent to open 4 additional free kegs. Surprisingly there were very few complaints that day. Serving additional beer may not be the right solution for you, but there are several things you can do is you have problems with the results.
The beauty of the Internet is that runners can always get their results by logging on at their convenience. It also provides a vehicle for runners to communicate with timing companies to correct any errors that may have been made. Use this tool to its full advantage if a problem occurs at your event. Planning your event for 2004 Regardless of when your event is and in which part of the country it is held, it is never too early to begin the planning. Remember the Internet is working for you 24 hours by 365 days a year. Here are some suggestions for you to consider as 2003 draws to a close.
The bottom line is that you cannot start promoting your event too early! We at Cool Running hope you have a great holiday season and watch out for our next race director newsletter early in 2004. Other 2003 race director newsletters: Advertisement
A Road Race specialty of ours is our "Course Clock/splits" service. Our technicians do it all from start to finish with up to 25 clocks for complete marathon coverage. Many of the best-known races in New England have used this service for years. Take a look at our Reference page on our web site www.starsystemsco.com. Bob Gibb & Family, owners Advertisement - a Cool Running Partner
The Racer's Resource features listings of fitness activities including: road races, walks, triathlons, duathlons, and multi-sport activities. Our hope is to make races easy and accessible for both participants and event directors. Advertisement - a Cool Running Partner Provide personal fund raising pages to your runners
The service will enable runners to quickly and easily set up an online fund raising page that can be personalized with their own picture, text message, fund raising goal and page title. It enables them to send out emails to family and friends and enables them to make secure online donations with a credit card that are automatically processed and sent to the charity. Click here to see a sample page: http://www.justgiving.com/PFP/pages/default.asp?id=CGG/1036 You can offer this capability to your runners directly as a way to help them raise more funds for charity more easily. You can also enable your "official" charities to offer the service to their supporters participating in your event and is a great way to unite more charity runners around your event. The service can be set up to enable runners to raise funds only for charities designated by you or for any charity (the service includes a vetting process to ensure that organizations nominated by runners have a 501c3 tax status). The service has no set up fees for you, your runners or the charities, there is only a small processing fee when donations are actually made so there is no risk. This personal fund raising service can help your event to raise more funds for charity, reduce effort associated with managing your charity program, will help charities get more participants for your event and can provide some great public relations opportunities. How to get started: Parting Words Free calendar listing. Include your event in the Web's most respected and comprehensive calendar of running events. We suggest you post your event calendar as early as possible and at least four months before race day. Submit your race now. Free race results listing. Post your race results on Cool Running. Submit your race results now. Online advertising. Promote your event with one of our event advertising packages, each carefully tailored for events of specific sizes and needs. Review our event promotion packages. Paid link. Include your website or race application page on our race applications page for a modest fee. Contact us for rates and information. Your own mini- website. Build your own web page and registration form in minutes with Cool Running's easy-to-use, automated event builder. Your site gets linked in the event calendar and on our race applications page. Try this affordable service now. Online race registration. Along with our partners at Sign Me Up Sports, we can help you manage your race registration more easily and more efficiently by moving the process online. Contact us for rates and information. Custom Web design. Engage our designers to build your page from scratch, tapping our years of experience with effective online event promotion. Contact us for rates and information. Consulting. Our management team has lots of experience with successful race management. Let us help you navigate everything from scoring to insurance to promotion to merchandise. Contact us for rates and information. To subscribe to the newsletter: Copyright 2003, Cool Sports, Inc. All rights reserved. |
The Racer's Resource
Cool Running is introducing a new service to enable your runners to create their own online fund raising page. This service will help more runners raise more money and take the hassle out of the fund raising process.