Hi, this is Debbie Boyle's coach at Mojo for Running with podcast number 45, Races and Race Directors.

If you race often, and even if you've only raced once, you may have a message or many messages for race directors.

Have you ever considered what a monumental job it is to put on a race?

I think apparently most people have not. What do you think?

I think it's quite complicated and it's really amazing that so many races manage to go off without any

serious hiccups, any serious problems. And I will say this, I've raced in almost 200 races,

and almost every race has some kind of a problem. So I think you pretty much have to go in

expecting that. But my local website is called runtampa.com. And because that is the number one website for Central Florida

and has the preeminent definitive race calendar, it gets loads of traffic. And as a result,

many first-time race directors contact me for advice. What amazes me is that they're so naive

about how much is entailed.

The first thing I ask is how long until your race?

It just knocks me out that sometimes they're in the very early stages of planning,

yet they're planning on having a race in just a month or so.

Often they don't know where they're going to have it.

Sometimes they haven't decided how long it'll be. Sometimes they don't know what they're going to have it. Sometimes they haven't decided how long it'll be.

Sometimes they don't know what they're going to charge.

It's just amazing, but yet they think they can put all that together in only a few weeks.

I tell them they better rethink it because the minimal time you would need would be at least six months. I suspect it might be easier in some

parts of the country than it is here. But in this area, dealing with local counties and the various

governmental agencies requires at least this long. Anyway, the point here is that there is a lot

involved, and perhaps that explains why so many things get screwed up at so many races.

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