Give One Back
Posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009
Runners at the start of Speedgoat 50K held at Snowbird Resort
(All pics taken by cell phone.)
Just a humble plea to those who enjoy racing…whether it’s road or mountain running, adventure racing, riding road or mountain bikes, triathlon, Nordic or Alpine ski, endurance or sprint distance, summer or winter, it’s time to show our RDs some love. Many of us like to find the camaraderie of the race – it is a benchmark for our sports, which are often also our passions. We see old friends and make new ones and enjoy a good day’s challenge. These are great events which give us lasting memories, and they don’t just happen.
Race Directors are a special breed. Some are involved in larger scale productions and may even make some money off the deal, but so many of the local races we participate in are run on a simple grassroots philosophy. Initial motivation to create a race was an inspired moment wanting to design a special day of challenge and the details of the registration, permits, aid stations, medical, distribution of course information, tracking racers, timing and everything else were the reality someone had to wade through to make that inspired moment a reality.
Setting up the Aid Station on Hidden Peak
These guys need help! Probably all interpretations of that idea are correct, but the thing that RDs need most (after their morning coffee), are warm bodies. The longer the race course, the harder it is to control the elements along the way and the more important it is to have aid stations and volunteers to work them. Coordinating food and hydration to aid stations, having people to run the aid stations who can communicate problems or injuries along the course, marking the course and sweeping the end of the race, taking down the flagging or directions and cleaning up to leave things in the same condition they were found, all require manpower. I bet you have those skills!
Aid Station volunteers at The Tunnel station
I have volunteered in medical and non-medical capacities at a number of races and events over the past decade or so and have been the medical coordinator for the Speedgoat 50K Ultramarathon in Utah for the past three years. Seeing races from that side of the fence gives one a whole new appreciation for all the detail and worry that go into putting such an event on. It also gives an even greater appreciation of all those who take a day away from their favorite things to simply support others making a great effort. I probably have about a 4 or 5 to one ratio of events I race to events for which I volunteer, I don’t know that this is enough or too much for anybody else, but it seems to work for me.
A quick word about Race Directors.
Race Directors are cool cats. They tend to be guys and gals that are genuinely just interested in you having a good day. Even though there tend to be restrictions set up for registration and fees go up if you are not registered by a certain date, and they can’t guarantee your shirt size if you are not on time, blah, blah, blah, which make it seem like RDs are militant, OCD freaks, most of that is just to keep things running in a somewhat organized fashion.
My favorite cool cat RD story from recent times is from the finish of a recent 50 miler which has a strict limit on runners due to permits and fills quickly, ends up with a wait-list, etc. At the end of the race, a couple of my buddies, who are brothers, came in to the finish, one with a number and one without. The race director asked my friend without the number what his number was so he could register his finish time, and he told RD that he was just pacing his brother.
“Oh, great! Where did you pace from?”
“Um…right about 500 feet over there.” Pointing to the start line for the loop course.
Now this could have gone either way, the harsh view is that he poached the course; paid no fee, utilized aid stations and ran the entire race (which had closed out runners due to limited space). Perhaps this is technically correct, but the RD looked at my bud, let the wheels turn for a minute registering what happened, smiled and congratulated him on a nice job finishing the 50M course and gave him a finisher’s medal.
Relating this story is certainly not an endorsement of poaching a race, and the reason I won’t mention the specific race is that I don’t want this to be thought of as a race to steal. Not every RD would be as mellow about ‘pacing’ for the entire course, but the reality is that these brothers just wanted to run together and the guy who was pacing truly was pacing not racing because he would have likely finished ahead of his brother if he was giving a race effort. Bottom line is that when you have a handful of reasons to feel like someone just stole something from you and your first response is to congratulate them and be happy they had a good day, you probably have a karmic reservoir somewhere the size of Lake Powell.
So give these slightly off-axis, but wonderful people a hand, and volunteer for a race this year. Who know what else you might volunteer for next!
Looking out over the course single-track in Mineral Basin. Volunteers were subjected to views like this all day.
Mark Scholl, M.D., is a Cloudveil Inspired Mountain Ambassador and an Orthopedic Surgeon. He is a team physician to ReAL Salt Lake of the MLS, the US Ski Team and Solitude Mountain Resort. When he is not volunteering for ultramarathons, he is running in them.
