Top Tips for
Considerate Athletes
I wrote this,
(well, most of it anyway), for publication in "Northern Runner" many
years ago and much still holds true! Thanks to the odd recent contributor!! You
know who you are....
|
Tip
1 |
Ensure that
your entry form is completed as illegibly as possible. This means that the Race Director and/or the results guy
can have a good laugh, on the morning of the race, trying to decipher your
scrawl, when they've nothing better to do. Also, if you belong to one club of
several in a town, just mark the town name for the club. The organiser is
bound to know which club you're in! |
|
Tip
2 |
Don't mark
your sex/age/date of birth on the form. Reason? See 1 above. It adds a bit of
interest to an otherwise mundane job as you try to calculate an age category
or to remember whether Frances and
Lesley are male or female. Or just
put an initial for your first name and don't tell us your sex. We can work
this out from your handwriting. |
|
Tip
3 |
Turn up
with one minute to go before the ‘off’
and insist on holding everyone up while you run to the start line, then run
back to registration to get some pins, then find someone to put your number
on your back, then on your front. No-one minds a latecomer, especially if the
rain is horizontal. After all, you're paying a premium for being a latecomer,
(maybe it should be £5 extra in the last 10 minutes....) |
|
Tip
4 |
Wear your
number on your back, inside your shorts, on your other jumper (the one in
your car boot), on the tracksuit you left with your
wife at the start. You spoil all the fun if you just pin it on the front of
your vest! Or wear it upside down, for a bit of variety. Especially good with
numbers like 966, 161, 66 and so
on. Some organisers spoil things, though, by printing stuff on the number in
an effort to get you to wear it the right way up! But then, you could always
fold up or cut off the silly printed bits and still get your number upside
down...... |
|
Tip
5 |
After
crossing the finish line, ignore those pointless chaps in the yellow jackets
shouting at you to stay in line and keep moving. What do they know?!!? You've
just run a race, for goodness sake. They've just been idly standing around
all morning. As soon as you've crossed the line, stand around yourself and
have a good chat with your mates over the barrier. The results can easily be
re-compiled after you've pointed out where everyone else came in behind you.
Better still, just duck out of the funnel, (see tip 8). |
|
Tip
6 |
Don't just
get your race souvenir and wander off for your hotpot. Why not jog back out
to meet your friends who still have to finish and then run back in with them.
After all, the timekeepers will recognise you from the first time you
finished and they wouldn't be daft enough to note you down again, would they? |
|
Tip
7 |
Alternatively,
why bother to enter at all? Just put on your shorts and join in the fun. The
event makes enough money anyway AND
you get a free souvenir AND you
didn't want to be on the results anyway, (but you ran across the finish line
just in case.....) |
|
Tip
8 |
Of course,
if you don't want the souvenir you've paid for, just duck out under the
funnel tape between the finish line and the number recorders. That way,
you'll avoid the silly woman with the medals, mugs or whatever and it's a
real hoot watching the faces in the results room when they try to work out
where all the extra times have come from, (it's usually the other way round,
with more numbers than times, so you'll be correcting an imbalance, won't
you?) |
|
Tip
9 |
So that you
can get away quickly, find out where the results are being compiled. The chap
in there won't mind a bit of a rest for a few minutes from typing in all those
numbers. He'll happily stop to chat with you and let you know where you came
and what your time was. He'll also enjoy a lengthy discussion about whether
your time was recorded correctly. In fact, it would be an ideal opportunity
to tell him that you actually finished several places ahead of where your
number is on the sheet, because you stopped to have a chat or a stretch after
the line. If you can't get to results, the timekeepers usually don't mind
being interrogated while you stand over their shoulders or in front of them
or whatever. |
|
Tip
10 |
At the
prize-giving, it helps if you can wait until all the prizes have been
distributed before you point out that your age category is wrong or that you
ran in your wife's number and she had yours. But that should have been
obvious to the marshals at the finish, shouldn't it? It's always easy to get
prizes back. |
|
Tip
11 |
There's the
main race and there's the fun run. You've entered one but you fancy doing the
other instead. No problem - just pin your existing number on and do whichever
you want. Even more entertaining if the race organiser has used the same type
and range of numbers for both races!! (What a fool) |
|
Tip
12 |
Don't
forget to forget the SAE requested
- nothing we like better than addressing and making up our own envelopes and
paying for postage out of the tight race budget! Oh, and don't forget that
you don't really have to sign that cheque you're sending, (if you remember to
enclose it!). |
|
Tip
13 |
Isn't GPS a wonderful invention? Now you
can plague the organiser before/during/after the race with how you dispute
his distance(s) and that the course is really 250 metres long/short and
that's spoilt your PB and you
won't come back again next year because the course isn't accurate and anyway
you didn't tell him there was a 50 metre climb at half way and
............... (Yawn!)
(Thanks for this one Vince!) |
|
Tip
14 |
Back to the
SAE - if it's self adhesive, make
sure you fold it back on itself so that it's well and truly stuck together
and it has to be ripped apart to use it. "Stamp?" - That’s the S in SAE! And actually writing your name and address on the envelope
just takes all the fun out if it! |
|
Tip
15 |
Just so
nothing gets lost, remember to staple EVERYTHING
together when you send in your entry! Staple the cheque to the entry form,
staple the entry form to the SAE,
(if you've remembered to enclose it) and then staple the flap down on your
envelope so it goes right through the lot. Nothing better than unpicking
staples in front of a roaring log fire on a winter's evening..... |
|
Tip
16 |
You're one
of those few runners who plan their race diary in advance and enter races
just as soon as the entry forms come out. The problem is that when you get
your race numbers and information packs back, you pile them all together at
home. On race morning it's a bit of a rush, and grab
a number from the pile. Unfortunately the number you grab is next week's - at
today's race it's the same as the number allocated to a LV60 runner ... (Thanks for this one Bob!) |
|
Tip
17 |
And whilst
we're looking at race numbers.... You keep all your old race numbers as
souvenirs. Trouble is, you keep them in the same
place as the races you've just entered. Now which is the number for this
year's race? If only the race organiser had printed the year on the race
numbers, but of course he didn't (what a fool) so that he could keep his
costs, (and your race entry fee), down by buying in bulk and using his stock
over a year or two (and this one too, Bob!). |
|
Tip
18 |
... and back to your entries for a moment - don't forget to
seal your envelopes with as much sellotape as possible. As you know, your
race entry is totally top secret so we must know whether it's been tampered
with on the way. The fact it might take 5 minutes to open your envelope is in
no way a temptation to the entries secretary to drop the whole thing in the
bin and then say it must have got lost in the post! |
|
Tip
19 |
Under NO circumstances must ANYTHING be written on the back of
your number, even if there's a form printed there. We don't want to know if
you're diabetic or have someone else's heart - that's just too much
information for a Sunday morning
when we've only just finished our coffee and bacon roll. If you are taking
any medication, please make sure you forget to take this, (or bring it with
you), on the morning of the race, just to give these |
Written by:
by John Schofield
Submitted:
August 2008
Edited by:
Brenda J Earnshaw WRR Editor