How To Put On A Race In Your Community
Method of Keeping Time
One trade name is Chronomix. These handy pieces of equipment will record the time and place of each runner as they cross the finish line. It is a sort of printing stopwatch. If you have over a hundred or so runners, they are an absolute necessity. Another system involves the handing out of numbered Popsicle sticks or cards to runners as they cross the finish line. They will then give these to the results crew who then adds their name, age, etc. to the results sheet, which is used for the awards. List your age categories on this sheet ahead of time and just add the persons name to the correct category as they turn in their stick and give the results person their name and age. Make sure your results crew is away from the finish line so runners are not held up. This second system is best for smaller races. In larger races you will want to find a place for your results crew to work where they will not be constantly interrupted with questions.
Finish line set up by Cornbelt Running Club
Race Numbers or Bibs
Each runner should wear a number with a tear off tag on the bottom. You can buy these at Rainbow Racing Systems. If you are having both a five and a ten-kilometer race you can get black for the ten and red for the 5K. On the tear off portion is a space for the runners name and other information. In an area on the side is a place for a color-coded tag, which is used to identify age group and sex. Usually you will have different colors for each agegroup and different shape for men and women. Before the race you should prepare a list of tags of each color and shape and what age group or sex it represents. All of this is to speed results tabulation. The runner will usually pin the bib number including the tear off portion on their shirts with safety pins. The tear off portion being removed at the finish line. If you are using the pop sickle stick method this may not be necessary. After the tear off portion is torn off there is a hole one side to put them over a spindle and give them to the results crew who may staple or tack them to a sheet of foam or other lightweight material. A spindle may be a fishing stringer or a recycled wire hanger. The perfect spindle will allow you put them on from one side and take them off from the other. From this they can select the age group awards using the color-coded labels. You may want to lean a sheet of plywood against the wall as backing for the foam sheet. If you can, raise it up since working near the floor is hard. Some clubs have easels to support the results boards but the fewer heavy things you have to carry around the better. Whatever you use it should be sturdy enough to withstand tacking on the tear-off portion from each runners bib number to it. You should also get some plastic totes to store all race tools such as tack guns, spindles, clipboards pens, pencils or whatever.
The tear off portion from bib numbers
stapled to a results board
Here is a results board with sequential numbers ( the order the runners crossed the finish line) and bib numbers stapled beside them. Notice: the hole for the spindle, the times have been matched up from the Chronomix tapes and written here by results crew, the bib number is printed on them, this race director has written 5K male or 10K female on them rather using different color coded tags, names of runners are hand written by registration personnel. Each color represents a different age group regardless of which race they are in.
