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Bill Jol; RaceReportr, Race Director, Timer, Consultant & Promoter for Running Races. Giving you a glimpse behind the scenes at the most popular races in Ontario.
Toronto, Ontario
Sunday May 13, 2012
10K
Sure doesn’t feel like I slept. 4am came pretty quick. Today is the big day. The Sporting Life 10K has taken on a life of its own and has become the biggest race in the province and is likely to be one of the biggest in the country, the biggest being the Vancouver Sun Run.
After getting ready and meeting the team in the parking lot at 5am, the most important thing on my mind is finding a cup of coffee. Starbucks was close by the starting line and we all drove there. But it was closed. Across the street and down a block was a Tim Horton’s which had coffee, but wasn’t ready for breakfast yet. I couldn’t afford to wait, so took my coffee to go.
Next stop was the 5K split which was marked well enough to locate, yet the sun hadn’t risen yet. This would be my part of the world for the next 5 or 6 hours. One thing I love about my job is the premium parking. For this race my reserved parking was on the sidewalk below a “no stopping” sign and a “no parking sign”. At first I patiently waited, but as time quickly passed, I anxiously waited for street closure. At 7:00, with just an hour before the start of the race, I was still waiting. A police officer stationed at an access street close by was certain they would be shutting down soon, but he didn’t seem overly confident about it. With cars still zipping back and forth down Yonge Street, a police cruiser stopped by to inform me they have officers scheduled to show up at 7:45. I don’t think they realize my equipment takes time to properly set up and test. It took about 10 minutes for the road to be shut down and I was able to get on the street to setup at 7:55am.
Once I laid down the mats, 8 meters across, starting plugging in the cables, my Blackberry rang. I was fairly certain what the call was about. The runners were on their way. Now that’s incentive to hurry! I hooked up everything to the computers and noticed a connector had come loose on the backup system. I rushed to fix the problem and just as I reconnected it and everything came online, the first athlete zoomed by… at about 8:09, in a wheelchair. This was by far the fastest complete setup I’ve had to do since the Rat Race 2 summers ago.
It was like watching a massive wave coming in as the runners approached. And the steady flow continued for a couple hours as wave after wave arrived from the staggered starts 5k away. It was a challenge to get runners to stay on the road and to pass the mats. I had coned off the path to direct them, but many people simply went down the sidewalks or disregarded the cones. Next year I would recommend barricades, more cones, and a 12 meter wide set of mats and prompt road closure to setup. But thankfully this year I was able to make it through the day without any more issues, uploading data to the server quickly helped the team post results on the website quickly: Sporting Life 10K 2012 Results available at www.chiptimeresults.com
Luckily I avoided the 401 traffic jam/closure due to an accident, and drove an alternate route back to Hamilton. Unloaded the equipment, returned my rental, waited for the team to regroup and then we went to the West Town Bar & Grill on Locke St for our post-race weekend dinner.
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Uxbridge, Ontario
Saturday, May 12, 2012
7.1K Sport, 14.7K Enduro
The 5:00am wake-up call came a few minutes too early. I’m picky about these kinds of things (not really); but I set my clocks based on the GPS satellites and I know when it’s 5:00am. Breakfast tends to take place anywhere that has an open sign and the lights on. Tim Horton’s tends to be the staple, and where you are or wherever you’re going, there’s always one on the way. I’ll let you know when I appear in their commercials, or when they sponsor one of my races.
It was a short drive to Durham Regional Forest, which is located just south of the township of Uxbridge. It is the perfect venue for the second race in the 5 Peaks Trail Running Series for South Western Ontario. The park wasn’t packed but the race was sold-out weeks in advance. Apparently there were complaints from the right people that forced the race to reduce its numbers. Last year participants parked on site, and on the road to the park, and the venue was able to accommodate several hundred more runners. This year it was a more intimate run, with a few hundred runners looking forward to the challenging course. Of course no race is without its hiccups, and being new to the series, I’m learning how to deliver the best results and trying to understand the needs of the Race Directors David & Erin. As it turned out the race distances I had my systems programmed for, turned out to be much shorter than the actual distances of the courses. Fortunately I was able to fix it quickly and regenerate results and pace times right away. Thankfully this was resolved before too many people noticed.
The award ceremony went smoothly and there were some fantastic draw prizes. There was an announcement that Size 9 Saloman shoes were available for the first 3 men to get on the podium; this attracted a mad dash from the men throughout the crowd. Quickly the podium was filled and a fun dance-off took place followed by a push-up contest to declare the winner of the shoes. The crowd cheered and applauded.
As we awaited the end of the race, for the last few walkers to come in, we waited patiently with the EMS crew. Then we packed up our gear and prepared to head out for Toronto. One race down. One to go.
I arrived at Sporting Life store around 3:00. I hadn’t been there before, so I went in the front door, where I ran into Michelle B. who is part of the Race Crew for the Tri Kids Triathlon Series. She directed me to the Registration tent where I found Art S. and Graydon S., two of the best timers in the country. When you have a race of this calibre you send the A-Team, and I was glad that I was brought in to work on the team. At their registration station they handled a couple thousand changes during the week prior to the race, and they could see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was a pleasure to meet Julia R. from MyLaps who came up from Atlanta for the race.
With some time left to kill before they were ready to leave, I headed to Cam’s Place, just down the street. I checked in on Foursquare, and then discovered the bartender Doug C. was also the Foursquare mayor of the establishment. Once the Sporting Life 10K race kit pickup ended for the day Graydon and Julia kicked back at Cam’s Place while Art and I went on a mission to find the 5K split mark for the morning. The evening before the race and it was nowhere to be found. A quick call to Race Director Jay Glasman reassured us that it would be well marked and visible in the morning. So we headed back to meet the Timing Team. Norma L. and Kristina arrived to join the group and we all enjoyed our dinner sitting on the patio. Then it was back to our rooms at the Glengrove Suites. Looks deceivingly fancy, has a unique elevator right out of a classic movie; close to the starting line, and we were all waking up at 4am anyway.
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My day began with a stop by to speak with Carol D., the owner of The Branding Company, one of my race sponsors. Fantastic energy and a keen sense of what will be the up and coming hot items for summer; this describes her entire team, too, and I’m very glad to have them on board as a sponsor. I picked up a few sample products, a couple of varieties of instant-cool microfiber scarves, and a few catalogues to read through during my weekend when I have the time.
I load up my car with a few things from my office, located in the Brant Waterways Foundation offices, which is conveniently situated a floor below the Branding Company. Then I head out for a meeting with the Courtney H., the account coordinator, Barry E., and the owner of TDG Marketing, another sponsor that came onboard late last year to provide our Brantford Tournament of Races, Road and Trail Series project with an amazing website at www.likerunning.ca. We discussed some choices on building a better brand for the business side of things and how to effectively marry the corporate information with the exciting projects and races we’re involved with. Sometimes the best value from sponsorships is gained from these types of meetings. I try to take the time to meet with our sponsors, find out what drives their passion to help and support what we’re doing and how we can best promote them and increase their exposure. Of course, when you work with some of the best people in their respective businesses, it’s a pretty easy delivery to make!
Now I have to tell you I am very excited about the upcoming SteadyState site. www.steadystateonline.ca is coming soon. Stay tuned.
At this point I’m ready to begin a typical race timer’s job. I love the hands-on work. I drive to Hamilton to rent a van and load up the equipment and computers I need to time not only one race, but 2 races, over the weekend; requiring 2 completely different systems, one Championchip and the other using the new Mylaps bib-tag. Then I return to Brantford to pick up Adrian, my teammate for the weekend, and we head off to Newmarket.
I enjoy the travel days. We talk to Douglas, the man behind the counter at the Best Western, and he recommended we eat at the Thai Golden Bell Restaurant. He said it was small but the food was really good. He was right on both counts. We almost changed our minds when we saw its location, but the friendly and fast service was amazing, and the food was outstanding. Adrian is doing his best to be a vegan, and for what he doesn’t eat, I definitely make up for. Of course, the first thing I do is check-in on Foursquare, and read the tips from previous customers. Thanks to Ashley R. who recommended the spring rolls, cashew nut chicken and chicken fried rice. So that’s what I tried and she was absolutely right. Delicious! Adrian C. was pleased to see a lot of Vegetable dishes and brown rice was new on the menu.
After a couple hundred kilometres and some good food, I was ready to get some much needed rest. My weekends don’t usually have much time set aside for sleeping. But when you love the work you do, you want to invest as much time into it as possible.
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Waterloo, Ontario
Sunday, February 12, 2012
8K/8mi
From the moment I arrived at RIM Park, and parked the truck and the trailer beside the snow banks at the finish line, I could tell it was going to be a long, cold day. The first challenge to de-ice the padlock on the trailer was solved by holding a large propane tank heater up to the lock for a couple minutes. Yes, it was a funny sight for the people who had arrived as early as I. However; once inside the trailer, we managed to get all of our equipment out and electronics set up, as the trailer’s interior lights warmed up.
I am working for Chip Time Results timing the race and results will be posted to the website before I leave, which is something that I tend to do just in case there are any name or age corrections that I can complete before setting the results live on the Internet. Quite often I have people come up and explain they accidentally mixed up their bibs with their spouse. It’s an easy fix. By the way, that’s me in the photo wearing the yellow jacket and blue toque, getting ready to count down to the start of the race.
Lloyd Schmidt, the race director, has a shiny new metal structure, also featured in the photo, for the Start/Finish Line which I imagine will be a welcome addition to the Waterloo Running Series. We used a 4 metre wide start finish; next year Lloyd suggested a 6-metre start would be needed. One thing I know from experience is that races in the Waterloo Running Series are known for their annual growth in participation.
I brought Rick Mannen (Former Elite Marathon Runner and Winner of 7 International Marathons) along with me to help familiarize him with the intricacies of the work I do as a Race Timer.
Over 200 people participated in the 8K run, with slightly less challenging the 8 mile. The warm welcome everyone receives at registration and the post-race food and award ceremony conclude the event on a very high note. We received a visit from Natalie Veras, a personal trainer from the area, who enjoys running and training for races. We always encourage runners and volunteers to stop by and say hello while we’re working at a race. Check out Natalie’s Website and follow her on Twitter. It can be demystifying to see what’s going on at finish line timing; how we bring everyone prompt and accurate results.
It’s nice to find a race close to home because during this time of year races are far and few between. Awesome job by the volunteers and participants! Another well-organized race by Lloyd and his team, way to go!
Check out some of Lloyd’s great photos that highlight the race which also includes the credit for the Header Photo.
Media Coverage
Race Reporter for Get Out There Magazine, Jeff Rowthorn, joined nearly 500 runners at RIM Park in Waterloo, ON for the “Re-Fridgee-Eighter Run”. Watch his YouTube Video Race Report.
Other Bloggers: Alice Mommy Blog “Re-Fridgee-Eighter”
Chip Time Results: 8K Results – 8-mile
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The best way to learn the most about how races are put together, organized and coordinated on race day, is to go to them, volunteer at them, work at them, and take the time to meet the race directors and the race committee or crew. Find out what drives them to do what they do and what some of the best practices are for their particular role in the organization of the race.
There aren’t too many races in the winter so I have to make each one count. I started with the 30th Annual Robbie Burns 8km Road Race in Burlington on January 24th, organized by the Burlington Runners Club. I had to wait a couple weeks before heading back to Burlington for the Advanced Rejuvenation Valentine’s Day Sweetheart Race on February 7th. A few more weeks passed before travelling to London for the 1st Annual Really Chilly Road Races on February 28th. Here is where I had the pleasure of meeting Paul R. from the Runner’s Choice. Paul is a fantastic character that has an incredible passion for running, and does a remarkable job putting together races for his community to participate in.
One week later I was back in Burlington for the 14th Annual Chilly Half Marathon & Frosty 5K on March 7th. I met Kelly A. from VR Pro who works on many races in the Burlington area. She brings lots of energy to each event and quite often handles all the finish line announcing herself. I had the opportunity to assist Kelly while she called out the runner’s names as they crossed the finish line. With only a handful of races taking place in the winter, the majority of them seem to be in the Burlington/Hamilton area. On March 13th, the Slainte Saint Patrick’s Day 5k took place in Hamilton. It was cold. It was very cold and very windy. The wind was so strong it picked up the timer’s mat’s and sent them through the air like a magic carpet.
It takes commitment and smart planning to run in the winter. It is exactly the same for race directing, and for timing. There are considerable challenges and unforeseen obstacles that can occur at any time at any race. Working in adverse conditions and under pressure can intensify the situations. Fortunately I work best under pressure and I handle each problem with careful focus and a keen understanding of what is necessary to reach the best solution. I commend and respect the runners and the race crews for their outstanding perseverance through the winter months.
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It all began in 2009…
…and it is truly an adventure to be part of the athletic event/running race industry. In my line of work, I have the opportunity to work alongside, with, or for, many of the key players that bring to life all of the running race events that you have come to know, support, volunteer for, donate to, love and participate in. Millions of dollars are raised through the efforts of runners, walkers, wheelchair athletes, children, families, volunteers, teams, sponsors and suppliers, partner charities, charity representatives, the Race Director and the dedicated team on the race committee.
I know first-hand the challenges that are faced when taking on the daunting task of bringing a race from the paper napkin phase straight through to hanging the finisher’s medal around the neck of the last child to pass through the finish-line.
I would love to share my stories with you of the races I am involved with; timing, managing, directing, volunteering, or wherever my services are needed most, and I hope they give you a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes at many of your favourite races.
It is my pleasure and to present you with the racereportr blog. Something different. something fun. something to tell your friends about.
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