Learning the Ropes--The High-Wire Balancing Act of Race Directing...
The Spirit of '76 6.7 mile pipeline
run was my initiation into race directing this year. Although
I by no means did anything unassisted, I have never before been
in the seat of such responsibility in this matter of running
the operations of a race. (Actually, Richard Taitague is our
de facto Race Director. He does all the work and I carry the
responsibility). I don't think I have ever felt so inexperienced
and new to something since I joined the Cub Scouts at 8 years
of age.
Anyone who has ever given in to a fit of insanity or bad manners at a race should try directing one. Among the litany of failures and race-directing faux pas we've commited: there wasn't enough diet soda, or sufficient t-shirts in the right size, or the race directors failed to coordinate with Department of Public Works to have special traffic signals flash and say, "Runner, Turn Here!" Only lack of imagination could limit the number of things that can possibly go wrong during a race. If it can be planned it can also go wrong!
Helping to manage
a race is a humbling enterprise, capable of administering large
doses of insecurity sufficient to create the sort of anxiety
usually reserved for going back to school. You know--that two
week period where you have dreams that it's the first day of
class and you're dressed only in underwear?!
Normally I am a calm and reasurring sort of person who eagerly offers comfort and encouragement to others. But I have discovered that race directing puts my nerves into a heightened state of alert. I want everything to be absolutely perfect on my watch. For the Spirit of '76 run-- my maiden voyage into race responsibilities-- Richard Taitague assisted in expanding my experience base. Richard is a veteran race director and has often filled in when Marsh and Josephine are off-island. Concluding that it could be misleading and possibly damaging to my future in race directing if I experienced a perfect race the first time out, Richard decided to show up at five minutes before race time with the clocks and cones. I was dancing on a cone and blathering incoherently when Richard found me. Vice Prez, Joanne Bonine, looked on from a distance with the sort of trepidation one would feel while watching an ordnance team defuse a bomb. (No! Not the green wire!!!) Maybe I wasn't that bad but I was definitely out of my comfort zone.
The end result? We had a lot of fun. It was a great race for everyone... except the poor guy who ran past a specially built curved lane of some 500 cones marking the final turn-off. (He blew right on by and did an extra mile through downtown Agana before finishing through the chute backwards. We should have arranged with DPW for the flashing lights).
I came through
the experience with a whole new appreciation for the stuff that
Marsh and Josephine do all the time. I have a new level of respect
for what they do for us all. Learning the ropes of race directing
is like walking the tight rope; its a very demanding act of balancing
all sorts of details. The really experienced ones make it look
easy. All who walk these ropes do so with the "safety net"
of many indispensible volunteers and the good will and manners
of the appreciative runners who run the races. Thanks for making
my first time out fun!
In it for the Long Run,
Neil Culbertson, GRC Prez
07-05-2001