So inititally I was scared I was going to wake up thinking it was Sunday and miss the 5k, as I thought Friday was Saturday. I didn’t, but unfortunately I kind of wish I had. This post is one I feel bad about writing, and I figured I would start out by saying that I do give the organizers a big A+ for starting a 5k race that promotes awareness of Diabetes. Racing is a great way to raise money, we know, we pay regularly do to run them! I felt like the effort was there, but when it came to actually pulling it off and the sheer organization, I unfortunately have to give them an F. Maybe this is another sign I should not run without Beth?
For starters, the race time was changed AFTER registration; originally it was supposed to start at 8:00 a.m. I work every Saturday so if I am going to race that day it has to be early enough so that I can get to work by 9:00 a.m.-ish. A week before the race they updated the page to say the race would now be at 9:00 a.m. Great! I went anyways, I work for my dad so he is lenient but I don’t like to push it too much. My husband and I arrived at UTD and the directions said to go to the Southside of the basketball courts, no one was there from the race. There were about 20 of us waiting around, we wait, wait, nothing. I decided to walk around this building and I found a guy with an event shirt. He says it starts at the student services building which was not mentioned. Sure enough I find them and it’s now 8:20 a.m. At 8:30 a.m. guest speakers are supposed to start and their website indicated there would be a total of 2 speakers. It’s now 8:50 a.m., no speakers, no idea when the race will actually start. A few minutes later the guest speakers finally start, the first was a little girl who was AMAZING and totally worth the wait! But then we get 3 more about nothing except thanks for coming out. I think one of them was even a guy running for office. IT’s now 9:15 a.m., no race yet, and all the organizers are standing around saying “the race will start in 5 minutes.” I would have said fine and not been so annoyed, but they did this for about 15+ minutes. I finally looked at my husband and said, “they have 5 minutes or I have to leave, I have to get to work!” At this point it is 9:30 a.m. and no one has even lined up to race. As a matter of fact, I am convinced that they didn’t even know the race route as two of the organizers were debating where the turns were supposed to be! I was done! So in total I went to a race, had to pick up everything, i.e. race packet, there and literally stood around for an hour and a half to run a race that takes me less than 30 minutes to run. So unfortunately I left. I left out of sheer frustion and time. By the time I left at 9:35 a.m. the race had not started and still no one had lined up in preparation for the race to begin. I feel terrible for even mentioning the race and not running, but sometimes that’s just the way it goes!
The AMAZING guest speaker!
At the same time, I do recognize that I have a bit of a different situation with my Saturday’s and my part time job where a race that starts on time and starts early enough I can fit in before I have to be at work. There are a lot of people who get up for a Saturday race and do not have any sort of time constraint like I do. I also recognize that A LOT of work goes into the scheduling and organizing of a race! Perhaps these guys have not actually run many to know a lot of the details, but I do hope they learned a lot from this race and will improve their race for next year! Beth is actually a volunteer for Heroes for Children and apart of their 5k race committee, which I believe she’ll talk about in a later post, and I have no doubt she will learn A TON about organizing a race.
Also, here is a picture of me from before the race and sorry that’s all you get!
I think you are right in sharing the race day events and feeling frustrated. I hope you share this blog update with the event organizers. They need to be accountable for their actions (or inaction) and appreciate the level of support we as runners bring to the fundraising efforts for these worthy causes. There is a lot of races competing for a limited number of runners and it’s the charity that looses if they don’t put on a quality event.
Thanks, Jon! It’s definitely hard to write something negative and put those vibes out there, but at the same time want to make sure they learn from how the event went from a participants perspective! It’s especially disappointing when it’s for a cause that’s apart of your family and you really care about bringing awareness!
Again I couldn’t agree more. As runners I think we are essentially a good natured community who would prefer to be positive whenever possible. Nevertheless we sometimes need to do the “dirty” By the same token I think when a race is especially well organized or designed I think it is equally important to share the compliment and positive reviews.
I am so sorry that happened to you! Will you try a different race this month?
Yes! We have a 5k we will be running together this weekend! Fortunately we were able to make a race work on pretty much the only weekend we both had available this month!