The 2011 Burn Your Lungs Run Is Officially Over!

I have successfully completed directing my 2nd race ever. On Saturday, July 31, the 2nd Annual Burn Your Lungs Run was held at the South Lincoln Training and Events Center. Since this is my personal blog, I will tell about my day for the race, and give some behind the scenes looks into what it takes to direct a race.

Quick recap of the week: Tuesday night - Volunteer Meeting, Thursday morning - Ran Half Marathon Course marking it with spray paint, Thursday evening - Stuffed Race Bags, Friday morning - Ran 5k Course marking it with spray paint, Friday evening - Registration and Packet Pickup at the Triangle.

My Saturday started around 4:30 a.m. Showered, had breakfast, and rounded up everything at the house that I needed to take down to the race start. At 6:00 a.m. I met Nelson at the Church to load up all the tables, chairs, and trash cans for the aid stations. 6:15 a.m. I was as the Events Center unloading the rest of the Race Bags and other stuff out of the Tahoe. Lincoln County Search and Rescue came to help out and I directed them to fill up all the coolers with ice and then take them out to all the aid stations.

About 6:30 a.m. all of my other volunteers showed up, huge thanks to them! We had all the race bags, shirts, registration forms, and everything else all ready to go. The timing system we used this year was technically for Cross Country Meets, but it worked good to have it all on the computer. Only 2 problems with it. 1 - I had to have a different computer for each race (for the built in timer) since all three races started at different times. and 2 - The timer froze up after an hour of use. Good thing I planned for something like that to happen and brought back up stop watches for each race.

7:00 a.m. we had people start showing up to get their bags and register. We set up a small tent and table by the start/finish line for the computers. I was also directing other volunteers out to their aid stations with food and GU's. That hour flew by in a hurry making sure everything was in place and answering lots of questions about the course, etc...

At 8:00 a.m. the half marathoners took off. I felt a little bit of relief here. Then I started gathering the 10k runners to the line. Gave them their instructions and sent them off. Next, the 5k'ers. This is was the largest group by far - upwards of 90 runners. Once they all left, I felt really good.

From there it was making sure the timing systems were working, that we had volunteers in place for the bib numbers, stickers, and water bottles. I took some pictures as the finishers were coming in. Once the races were over it was time to move everyone inside for the awards and our small little raffle. Hopefully next year we can have a bunch of stuff to raffle off, but I think everyone got some good free stuff in their race bags.

After all the awards and everyone left it was clean up time. Had some great helpers there too!

Overall I feel like it was a very successful event, and looking forward to next year!