h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm organising a 10km run out and back, to the pub for brewers and other beery people. I think I've worked out a reasonable route, almost 100% off roads, and will be checking it soon.

The thing is, I'm pretty certain I'll have overlooked something in organising this, as I've never done it before. So, all advice welcome!

I've no idea either

How many people will be running, and how official will it be?

Don't know yet, somewhere between 20 and 100 we think.

Not very official, but some of the runners are serious ones.

How will you measure their times? Have you a team of marshalls? First aiders on hand? Will you be supplying water/ medals/ T shirts? How do people apply?

Measuring times is something I'm not sure about, and open to suggestions. What I was thinking was having a couple of people using stopwatches on their smart phones, with a couple writing down what they call out as people cross the line, against position numbers. Then the runners get a finish number token, so we can correlate with the times. A bit like Park Runs do

Marshals, I've been trying to plan the route so that it involves as little need for marshals as possible, and working out where marshals will actually be needed. I *think* the route will need about a dozen of them, and I'm asking favours of brewers/bar staff/bloggers and drinkers who don't want to run, to have them standing around directing people.

First aiders. This is something that I don't know about until we get an idea of the numbers involved. My sister in law is a nurse, so I might drag her along to be on hand if we get a lot of people signing up.

Water, wasn't planning to. I think as long as we say to people "Bring your own liquids" then we should be okay.

Medals/t-shirts, I was wanting it to be a free to enter event if possible. People are going to be travelling to Manchester from all over the country, and staying in hotels as well, so I was hoping to make entry either free, or a nominal fee just to cover costs. Having a medal/momento of the day though would be cool.

How to apply, yeah, er, at the moment people are just tweeting at the account, but once we've got a definite route and date, then I'll get people to email in their entries.


All thoughts on these are much sought after though.

Well this escalated quickly

It seems that this is a very popular idea, who knew there were so many beer people that liked running. Seems that there are a *lot* more than I thought.

From the initial idea of a couple of dozen going out for a run, we're now having to think about limiting numbers as there's interest from not just all over the country, but a brewery in Denmark is thinking about sending a team over.

So I now have a much longer checklist of items I have to consider. I'll stick everything up here as I go along, it'll be a good place for me to find it and hopefully help anyone else thinking of doing the same.


Race HQ: Needs to be easy to find, with someone always there who can contact every other volunteer/staff on the day.

Toilets: Kinda hoping that the pub nearby will get on board and let us use theirs.

Bag Storage: Not a clue at the moment. Maybe hire/borrow a van (ooh, a brewery van would be good) and park it in an adjacent street..

Changing: Again, pub toilets with any luck.

Entries on the Day: Need to make sure those manning Race HQ are able to handle any we may get.

Start/Finish Sign: Not sure we'll need one of these, some chalk/ duct tape on the ground should suffice.

Finish Funnel: Same as the sign, maybe some barrier tape and a finish ribbon.

Timekeepers/Scribes: I've actually been recommended a company JC Race Solutions, who can handle all the timing needs and are quite cheap, about £2 a runner depending on the number of runners. So hoping to pass that hassle over to them, with stop-watches as a back-up.

Barriers: These shouldn't be needed for the route we're looking at.

Course Markers / Marshals: At every junction there needs to be a marker, or preferably a marshal. Once the course is set, I'll be going through working out where has to have a marshal, and where we can get away with signs. If people are paying to enter, they need a relaxing race.

Rubbish Collection: This shouldn't be an issue with this run, but we'll need to make sure we have a bin-bag available on the day.

Entry Forms: I think the timing company should be able to handle this, else I'm going to have to sort something out.

Prizes, Mementoes: We're now going to need these. A couple of people have suggested some run-branded beer glasses instead of a medal or tshirt, as they have a lot of medals and tshirts.

Goody Bags: Not sure we're going to do these, but more likely provide nibbles/cake at one of the venues later.

Advertising/Publicity: Don't think we'll need this to get runners, but it'll all be great publicity for the breweries involved.

Race Numbers: Again, wasn't originally planning on these, but think that the timing company can sort them out.

Race Information/Numbers Dispatch: Prior to the run everyone will need to have information about the day sent out to them, including a detailed map of the route. Thinking that numbers can be picked up on the day from Race HQ though, which will also allow us to check people in.

Publish Results: Afterwards people will need to be informed of their times and positions, I think the timing company handle this, but if not it'll be a lot of emails being sent out.

Water tables/staff: I'm not planning on having these out on the route, most of the runners signing up are quite serious (including several ultra-runners) so I'm thinking of just having a load of bottles available at Race HQ that people can pick up and take with them, or grab when they finish.

Permits from Councils: Yeah, this is likely to be a biggy. Because we're running on council land (footpaths), it seems we're very likely to need permission from the councils involved (both Manchester and Salford with this route) to run on them, even though we're not looking at asking for any road closures.

Emergency Services: We'll also need to inform the police that we'll be doing this, and get their permission. We're not anticipating any issues as we're aiming to make sure we don't do it on the same day that United are at home.

First Aid Cover: I'm going to have to have a word with the sister-in-law, but it *could* be that we have to get someone from St John's down. No idea about how much that'll cost.

Course Measurement: I've been reading that to advertise the run as any fixed distance, it has to be properly measured and certified. I'm going to ask the local Parkrun people about that, as well as many other things.

Public Liability Insurance: Going to have to have this with these numbers. A quick look into it, and for 250 runners and 20 volunteers/staff, it'll cost about £250 for the day.

Sponsorship: Because the event has grown a bit, I'm now going to have to look at some form of sponsorship. I *could* pass the costs evenly on to the runners, which'd be about £6 to £10 as an entry fee, but I'd rather not. So I'm hoping to get a sponsor for about £600 which'd cover the costs, and put their logo on the branded glasses and any advertising we do.



So yeah, the checklist isn't on the back of a piece of paper anymore

Additional thought on the water, send the marshals out with half a dozen bottles, then runners can approach the marshals if needed.

Another thing it seems I need to organise, it the "after party". What with it being a load of drinkers.

A brewery I know has said they'd probably be happy with it, but that it might be cold being that late in the year. I'm thinking it should be okay as I had my birthday party there last year around the same time of year and it was okay. Just put "Bring a jumper" on the information sheets.

So you thought you were arranging a 10k run, but now you're organising a ps up in a brewery...

<BB<

The p*** up was always part of the plan