Sweat the details

Finally got off the couch and back to the real world yesterday and went crazy, and am paying for it today, I feel like a ran a marathon yesterday! I was feeling a lot better in terms of my calf and leg so I decided to venture out and take care of a few things that had to happen for race day. It made me remember how much detail goes into races.

Most runners, or event attendees in general for that matter, do not realize how much planning goes into an event. And there is only so much of that planning that happens online. Here is a taste of what I did yesterday, just to give you an example of a day in the life of a race director.

I dropped off fliers for Good Karma to Redeeming Soles (the organization that is accepting shoe donations at the race) and got fliers from them to put into runner's bags. I distributed fliers to a bunch of coffee shops, community boards, shoes stores and gyms. I went to an office supply store and bought sharpies for the gear check, pens for the registration area and tried to figure out how to attach the laminated signs (which I have still to laminate) to the fronts of the tents. I dropped off fliers at Cascade Land Conservancy and picked up their fliers to distribute at the donation station. I picked up fliers from The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society on my way to going into a book store to ask for a donation for a prize.

At home, I checked registrations, checked the Facebook page, ordered bulk thank you cards online, checked in with a volunteer, looked at best prices for bananas, arranged a time to go to Restaurant Depot with a friend who has a membership to buy cups and responded to a few random emails and phone calls (one about a team discount, one about race bibs).

Phew, and that was only one day! Today I order balloons, make all the signs I will need, laminate those signs and hopefully cross 20 more things off my list.

Amazing this is all for an event that will be over in the matter of about an hour or so! But, I have to keep on remembering that hopefully it will make an impact on the community, the nonprofits and the participants themselves.

Sign up today and test out all these details, and when you are out there running, look at the mile markers and realize that was someone's care and time that made that happen, they didn't just appear magically. Or maybe they did!