For You

Race-day transportation is an important part of the weekend plan for many races and also can be a significant race expense, often running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Providing race-morning transportation is standard with point-to-point courses and may also be used where parking is an issue at the start or finish venues.

A “set and forget” attitude about course certification is understandable. But even the largest and most important races can make mistakes in this important area.

The 2022 Running USA Global Survey found that 16% of respondents consider the medal or finisher award when choosing a race. Sure, the main concern is the distance and course, race location, and if their friends are doing it, but runners are also all about the bling.

Even as your runners celebrate finishing their big day, your work as a race director isn’t over yet. A start line can be as simple or as complicated as the size of your race dictates, but the finish is usually a lot more elaborate.

For Marcel Altenburg, a leading crowd scientist at Manchester Metropolitan University, who’s worked with all the biggest sporting events in the world, the start of a race is the most important time of the whole day.

If you are a new race director or direct a smaller race, perhaps you have been asked if your course is “certified.” It must be important if potential entrants are asking about it, right? YES: in almost every case, having your course certified IS important

While many of the issues with creating a course are the same no matter how big or small your race is, once you start to crack 500 runners—and certainly by 1,000 athletes—the venues and hiccups change

Well-known Boston Marathon race director, Dave McGillivray, who also founded DMSE Sports, once got locked in a port-a-potty 20 minutes before the start of the Boston Marathon. Everyone was waiting for him and he was stuck. “And then I dropped my two-way radio into the unit,” he said, while he was trying to get out.

Race director-ing is hard. Creating a race, managing the operations and logistics and staff, marketing it and communicating with athletes, and building all of that into a sustainable and profitable event (or events) is no small task.

You’re ready to get your event off the ground or take it to the next level, but besides doing absolutely everything yourself and roping in friends to help you, you’re not sure how to staff the race: How many people do you need? Should they be volunteers or employees? Where do you even find them?