So, you wanna know about my stint as a “race director,” huh? It wasn’t exactly something I put on my resume, but boy, did I learn a few things. It all started pretty unexpectedly, like most interesting stories do, I guess.
The Beginning of the Madness
I remember this one time, a bunch of us decided to organize a local community event. Sounded fun, right? Well, it quickly became clear that everyone had an idea, but nobody wanted to actually, you know, do the work. It was a total mess. We had people signing up, but no clear schedule. We had a rough idea for a “course,” but nothing was mapped out. It was pure chaos waiting to happen.
I watched this unfold for a bit, and then I just couldn’t take it anymore. Someone had to grab the reins, or this whole thing was going to crash and burn before it even started. So, guess who volunteered? Reluctantly, me.
My “System,” If You Can Call It That
First things first, I tried to get a handle on what we were even trying to achieve. This involved a lot of talking, a lot of herding cats, basically. My process was pretty straightforward, mostly because I didn’t know any better:
- Nailing down the basics: I started by writing down everything. What’s the actual route? When does it start? What are the rules? Simple stuff, but nobody had bothered to solidify it.
- Making endless lists: I became the king of lists. Participant lists, volunteer lists, equipment lists, emergency contact lists. If you could list it, I did. My little notebook was my bible.
- Communication (or trying to): I tried to set up some kind of central communication. This was before all the fancy apps were common, so it was a lot of group texts and phone calls. Lots of “Did you get the memo?” moments.
- Walking the walk: For the course itself, I literally walked it multiple times. Marked it out with whatever I could find – bits of tape, chalk. Then I had to explain it to everyone, over and over.
- Putting out fires: On the day itself? Forget planning. It was all about reacting. Someone’s late, equipment fails, someone gets a bit lost. You just deal with it.
It wasn’t pretty. There were no fancy project management tools. It was grit, a bit of stubbornness, and a whole lot of winging it.
So, Why Me? And How Did I Get Here?
Now, you might be wondering why I’d throw myself into this kind of thankless task. Well, truth is, I had a lot of time on my hands and a need to do something… anything. I’d just been “restructured” out of my office job. You know the drill – they needed to “optimize resources,” which is corporate speak for “you’re out, we found someone cheaper or a new AI tool.”
I was feeling pretty down, honestly. Sending out resumes, getting nowhere. That office job, it was soul-crushing anyway, but a paycheck is a paycheck. So when this disorganized event thing came up in my local community, it was almost a distraction. I figured, how much worse could I make it? At least it was something tangible. Something where I could see an actual result, even if that result was just a slightly less chaotic Saturday morning.
It was a way to feel useful again, I suppose. Instead of staring at spreadsheets that didn’t matter, I was figuring out how to get 50 people from point A to point B with minimal crying.
What Came Out of It All
Was the event a perfectly smooth, professional operation? Absolutely not. There were hiccups. There were arguments. There were moments I wanted to just walk away. But, you know what? We pulled it off. People had a good time, mostly. And I learned that being a “race director,” or any kind of organizer, isn’t about having all the fancy qualifications. It’s about being willing to step up, make decisions (even if they’re not perfect), and keep things moving forward. It’s about dealing with people, with all their quirks.
And the funny thing? A few months after that first event, my old office called. Said there’d been a “misunderstanding” with my departure and they were wondering if I’d be interested in discussing a return. I just kind of laughed. By then, I was already knee-deep in planning another local shenanigan. Turns out, I preferred the chaos I could wrestle with over the polished kind that just wore you down.
