Are you thinking about organizing a race? Holding a 5K or other distance race can be a great way to bring the community together and raise money for a cause. Nothing about organizing a race is particularly hard, but there are a great many details to tend to, so it’s good to have a group of volunteers working together. Be aware that there are many more races on the calendar than there used to be, so competition for participants has gotten tougher. Still, with good planning and lots of publicity, it’s possible to attract enough people to make your efforts worthwhile. It’s best to set a goal of breaking even your first year and doing a good job so people will come back the next year and your number of participants will gradually increase.
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Pick Your Date

Check the Macon Tracks race calendar to make sure your race date doesn’t conflict with a well-established, popular race in a nearby location. Having two races nearby on the same day means both will suffer. Consider holding your race on a Friday or Saturday evening to distinguish it from other races. Check race calendars that include races in Georgia as not all races may place themselves on the Macon Tracks calendar. Email macontracks@macontracks.org if you’d like to know what races were held on your date the previous year.

Plan Your Course

You will need to get approval and a permit from the Parks & Recreation Department if your race is held in the city of Macon or Bibb County. The office is located near Central City Park. Getting approval can take time, so apply early. Download permit forms and an informational handout to get started. Also, check out https://www.maconbibb.us/pab-special-events/.  Police coverage is expensive ($35 per hour with a two-hour minimum per officer. Note the price may have changed since this was written.) so you may want to plan your course to have as few intersections as possible.

While certification is certainly a bonus in attracting dedicated runners, for most small 5K races it isn’t necessary to go to the expense of having your course certified. The exception would be a fast 5K or 10K course that runners might want to use to qualify for the Peachtree Road Race. This doesn’t mean that the course does not need to be accurate, because an accurately measured course is very important. Runners get annoyed when they’ve run a hard effort, only to find out the course was a tenth of a mile short so they don’t have a new personal record after all, or that the course was long so they have no idea how well they did in comparison to other races. The best way to get an accurate course is to measure it with a distance-measuring wheel, taking care to push the wheel along the tangents or shortest possible path. There is a wealth of information on this subject on the USATF website. GPS systems can help sketch out a preliminary course, as can calibrated bike odometers and Google maps. Do not use a car odometer. Measure carefully, marking each mile split along the way. Good GPS systems can be used if the operator is knowledgeable in how to configure and use them.

Hire a Race Timer

img_3322You will most likely want to hire someone to do your race timing. Getting accurate results is critical. For smaller races, a POF (place of finish) card system is sufficient. To compile the results, a volunteer pushes a button to record the time as each runner crosses the finish and then the runner is given a place of finish (POF) card to fill out so that the numbered card with the runner’s information can be connected to the time recorded on the race timing app or printable stopwatch. Larger races will find it worthwhile to incur the added expense of chip timing.  Macon Tracks provides a timing service but the demand is higher than we can meet.  So, plan early!  Send an e-mail to macontracks@macontracks.org to inquire about race timing services. It’s also possible to time the race yourself using a race timing app on a tablet or smartphone along with POF cards. It’s not complicated but does require some knowledge, so you may want to volunteer at a race to see how it’s done first. Scroll to the bottom for more detailed instructions on how to time your race.

Set Up Registration

Think carefully before deciding on an entry fee. Getting a good turnout is important not just for your bottom line, but also because a large number of participants will help when soliciting sponsorship money the following year. Don’t scare people away by setting the price too high, especially for a newly established race. The most expensive races typically do not charge more than $25 to pre-register or $30 on race day and often these races will offer technical fabric race t-shirts, chip timing, and other amenities, or they’re able to attract a lot of participants despite a high price under a cause many people are supportive of, such as breast cancer research, but do not depend on the choice of the charity to guarantee high participation or to justify a higher price. Consider offering a discount for kids or offering a family rate.  Also, carefully choose the online registration service as many charge fees that increase your price to your runners and may discourage participation.

2011-02-19-AndiBergerIt’s a good idea to offer online registration for your event. We highly recommend Racer Pal, a service offered by Andi Berger. Racer Pal credit card transactions are processed via PayPal and the funds are deposited into your own PayPal account. The Paypal fee is about 3% per registration for most races. If you contract with an event registration company such as Active.com, runners typically pay $3 or more in service fees. Encouraging runners to register online by keeping fees low means less work for you. You’ll spend less time typing information from paper forms into a spreadsheet, and less time processing checks, and the information will be more accurate. Visit www.racerpal.com for more details.

Get the Word Out

Check race flyers for other races to get ideas on how to lay out your flyer. Microsoft Publisher or Word both work well. You’ll want to include basic race information as well as a waiver. You’ll probably want to convert your flyer to pdf format. A free program to do this can be downloaded at CutePDF.

You’ll want to place flyers around town at health clubs and other locations and add them to online listings including Running in the USA, and American Runner Blog. Races within an hour’s drive of Macon can be listed on the Macon Tracks race calendar. Races further from Macon can be listed on the South Georgia race calendar on the Macon Tracks site.

Sponsors

To raise money for a cause, you’ll need to solicit sponsors. Plan as to what benefits will be offered with each level of sponsorship (some possible benefits you can offer are the sponsor’s logo or text on the back of the t-shirt and race applications, a certain number of free race entries, recognition at the awards ceremony, the opportunity to put materials in the race packets and to have a table at the race, etc.). Work hard to treat your sponsors well so they’ll return next year.

Shirts

A well-designed t-shirt that’s worn after the race is over will provide good advertising for your race in the future and for the sponsors as well. It’s important to plan carefully when placing the t-shirt order. It’s a costly mistake to order too many but you do need to ensure that all the people who pre-register get the size shirt they order (be sure and set aside enough shirts for all pre-registered runners as they get upset if they go to the trouble to pre-register only to show up on race day and find out you’ve given their shirt to a race-day registrant). Keeping records from one year to the next can help. A good starting point is to order 20% small, 30% medium, 30% large 18% XL and 2% 2XL. If you run out of shirts on race day, you can always take $5 off the entry fee or offer to mail a shirt to the runner in a few weeks. It’s often possible to have the shirt vendor do a second printing after the race.

Awards

img8648Awards don’t have to be expensive, but they should be plentiful. Creativity is a bonus. Typically awards are given to the top 3 male and female overall winners, the top 3 masters (age 40+) winners, and 3 deep in each of 15 age categories (10 & under, 11-14, 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75 & up). This means you’ll need 12 awards that are a little nicer plus 90 age group awards. Smaller races can go just one deep on the overall and masters awards. Probably not all age groups will fill (there usually aren’t 3 women in the 75+ age group, for instance), so you may get away with ordering fewer 2nd and 3rd place awards.

Bib Numbers and Supplies

There are many sources for bibs, but Road I.D. is a common supplier and is typically lower priced on bibs and safety pins.

Insurance

You can register as an “Event Member” through Road Runners Club of America and obtain insurance for your event. If your event is in Macon, you’ll need to add the city as an additional insured to get your permit. This can be true for other counties or municipalities also.

Volunteers

Line up your volunteers early. At a minimum, you’ll need volunteers to help with race day registration, to direct runners along the course, to pass out water, and help with the finish line. Having many volunteers keeps any one person from getting overwhelmed (especially the race director!).

More Details

For porta-potties, we recommend Restrooms 2 Go (478-808-7254).

Many food and beverage suppliers may donate products or give you a reduced price if you list them as a sponsor.  It is important to locate these early in the planning process.

Race Day

This may sound obvious, but it’s extremely important that everyone runs the same course. In other words, you don’t want anyone making a wrong turn! DO NOT rely on the police car driver leading the way to know the race route. Have someone ride with the police officer who is extremely familiar with the course. You can also ask a bicyclist to lead the runners. Likewise, do not rely on police officers to direct runners along the course. They are there to watch for cars, not runners. You need to make sure someone can follow the course even if they are out there alone. This means signs, cones, liquid chalk, caution tape, and volunteers at every possible place runners might get confused. Putting course maps out ahead of time helps, too.

Some things to bring on race day: safety pins, blank registration forms, change and a cash box, extra bib numbers, pens, trash cans, and a bull horn, air horn, or gun for the start. You’ll need cups for the water stations. An amplifier and microphone for the awards ceremony is a real bonus. Of course, you’ll need the race packets, t-shirts, awards, refreshments, and tables to put them on.

Instructions for Timing Your Own Race

1. You will need to install a race timing app on your smartphone or tablet, such as Race Timer Pro by Mark Pearce or Dalmith Applications Race Timer available on Google Play (there are similar apps available for iPads). You will also need to make up POF cards (place of finish cards). The POF cards are sequentially numbered and have a place for the runner to write their name, age, gender, estimated finish time, bib number, and city. (See example.)

2. You will need at least 3 volunteers: 1 person to record the elapsed time as each runner crosses the finish line (by pressing a button on the race timing app), 1 person to hand each runner a POF card as they cross, and 1 person to collect the POF cards and compile a list of overall and age group winners.

3. When the race is started, the person with the race timing app presses Start to begin timing the race. As each runner crosses the finish line, the race timing volunteer records their time and the second volunteer hands them a POF card. These two volunteers need to stay in sync with each other. For instance, when the 8th runner crosses, the eighth time is recorded, and the runner receives a POF card with the number 8 in the top right corner. If you get out of sync, for instance if someone neglects to take their POF card, or someone crosses the finish with a friend for the 2nd time, adjust as necessary by putting a POF card in your pocket or marking the time invalid on the race timing app. These volunteers should check with each other every 5 or so runners to make sure they’re in sync.

4. Runners write their information on the POF card and give it to the race results compiler. It helps to have a worksheet made up ahead of time with blanks to fill in for all the award categories. The first male and female runners’ names are entered in the overall spots, then the next male and female age 40 or older gets the first masters slot, and then the age group awards are filled in. Times are not necessary, but it’s good to also write the POF card number. It’s easy to tell that the person with POF card #22 finished ahead of the person with POF card #32. Note: male and female runners compete separately and there should be duplicate sets of awards for each. Typically if a runner wins an overall or masters category, they are not also eligible for an age group award. If the person winning the Masters award is 43, then the 1st overall 40-44 age group award goes to the next finisher in that category and so on.

5. After the race, the POF cards are used to complete a spreadsheet listing all the finishers in order with, at minimum, their name, sex, age, and time (see example). The estimated times written by the runners on their POF cards can be used to help match up the POF cards with the times recorded on the race timing app, though the race timing app times should be used for the official results. These results can be submitted to Macon Tracks or other websites for posting. Ideally, results should be posted within 48 hours.

6. This system does not take into account having a large clock for runners to see their times as they cross the finish. Race timing clocks are very expensive, and our club does not rent ours out for this reason. If you have access to electricity, it might be possible to use a computer monitor to display the time using a program such as the one at https://www.online-stopwatch.com. If you don’t have a race clock, you will at least want to call out the time as runners cross.

7. If you are planning to time your race yourself, I highly recommend volunteering or at least attending a local race beforehand to better get a feel for how this timing system works. Most small races use POF cards. It is not recommended to time your own race if you expect more than 150 runners.