There are many different tasks and details to put on a race that most runners are not aware of. Some of the preliminary work starts about four months or more before the race is scheduled. Advertisement, shirt order and design, awards and the cost are things that need to be decided well in advance. Day of the race tasks such as the course set up, registration, refreshment table, and parking location personnel are all part of putting on a race. One of the seemingly easiest duties is that of a direction person to make sure runners follow the correct route. And while this is just a matter of standing at a critical intersection or possible side road it is one of the duties that can cause a race to be a disaster.
One of my first examples was a 10K in San Antonio that I thought I could run under 40 minutes in. As I passed what I thought was the six mile marker at 37 minutes I figured I could run that last quarter mile in plenty of time to break 40 minutes. As I rounded the curve I looked ahead and thought that the distance was the longest quarter mile I had ever seen. Well, 40 minutes came and went, then 41 minutes, and on up to 46 minutes. I asked an aid station person how much farther to the finish. He said about another mile or so. It turns out the lead person took a wrong turn from a direction person and the result was the 10K distance was a little over eight miles long.
A race in New Braunfels had a ‘Y’ in the road. The lead runners took the right side of the Y. As a second group came to the intersection a direction person arrived and said we need to take the left side. It was too late to catch the lead runners. At the finish line runners were coming across the finish line from both directions. I am not sure how the race director figured out who were the award winners.
