RACE DIRECTOR NIGHTMARE FUEL

Cool, calm, collected—that’s the image race directors need to portray, but when they are out of the spotlight and the bustle of an event, they may be much less so. With so much responsibility and aspects of what they do out of their control, we asked some race directors what keeps them up at night.

SLEEPING IN

As an age-group athlete, you are probably nervous the night before a big event, but you aren’t going to starve if things don’t go well in the race. Not so with race directors whose livelihood may be at stake. For many race directors, insomnia isn’t a bad thing. What is bad, however, is hitting that 2 a.m. snooze button once too many times and waking up to a phone call from a colleague asking, “Where are you?”

IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?

In the planning stages of a race, there’s tons of work to be done but all that work can be for nothing if we, “the customers,” aren’t interested in the event. The soulsucking part for the race director is deciding whether or not to pull the plug and not throw away good money after bad. But, as bad as triathlon race directors have it, they have it better than organizers of cycling road races and other events that accept day-of-race entries.

FREAK WEATHER

Having a forecast three or four days before of an impending snowstorm or swarm of locusts on race day is business as usual for most well-prepared race directors, but it’s the unexpected freak weather that has race directors most nervous.

What’s worse, freak weather does happen. Race director Diana Hellman remembers all too well the freak weather at the 2019 Cat’s Hill Classic Road Race in Northern California. In an event that usually has athletes’ radiators overheating, freak weather brought hail and enough snow to make racers think they were in Thunder Bay. A similar encounter with weather wreaked havoc on Trevor Sol, the owner of Multisport Canada. The morning of a race, the water temperature in Vancouver’s English Bay had dropped two degrees, forcing Sol to make it a wetsuit-only swim. And, to accommodate athletes who didn’t have wetsuits, he created a duathlon for them, one hour before the race.

FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

Again, what keeps race directors up at night, is often beyond their control. Owner of Dynamic Race Events, Angie Woodhead says she can lose sleep over unexpected, and unannounced road closures. Imagine having planned and publicized a certain cycling route, only having to make last-minute changes because construction crews failed to inform the municipality or race director.

Race directors must be diplomats. They (and members of the local government and business community) know a race can provide financial benefits for some members of a community, but those who don’t see a financial return for their inconvenience (real or imagined) are voters as well. The race director needs to have Henry Kissinger-like qualities to win over residents and civic leaders, not only to get permission to hold the event but also to draw volunteers and sponsors.