How would I organize a marathon?

January 24, 2006 3:11 PM

How would I organize a marathon? What would it entail?

It seems like a mind-boggling task. I'm sure there are zoning permits I would need, a prepared meal before or aft, first aid providers, watering stations, and of course advertising the event.

Does anyone have experience in this? What's the order of operations and what am I overlooking?

posted by rinkjustice to sports, hobbies, & recreation (7 comments total)

Sponsors? Free stuff? Water? Gatorade? A measured, certified course? Volunteers? Web site? T-shirt? Police to do traffic control? Registration? Runner's bib numbers? Chips for more high tech tracking? Software for results? Prizes? Trophies?

Why am I running your race? Back in the dark ages, people ran for fun and fitness. Now every race must be a fund raiser for some dread disease.
posted by fixedgear at 3:22 PM on January 24, 2006

It seems to me to be an absolutely huge task; organizers are usually companies or organizations that have expertise and experience in this -- and lots of staff. Just arranging to close 26 miles of streets is itself a complete logistical nightmare, even given help from the authorities.

I'd say your best bet would be to talk to someone in the leisure department of your local government (city council or whatever).
posted by littleme at 3:41 PM on January 24, 2006

There are companies that can help with many of the details. Offhand, I only know of Active.com (no ties to them, just an brief and unrelated past experience that was underwhelming), but there must be others.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 3:43 PM on January 24, 2006

There are companies that can help with many of the details.

Tom Gilligan's Marathon Tours & Travel (Boston, MA) does this. I suggest a phone call to him. He's a great guy and likely to walk you through some of the things you need to consider.
posted by ericb at 4:32 PM on January 24, 2006

I would organize a 5k first, since that's pretty complicated even though it's much, much shorter.
posted by smackfu at 6:36 PM on January 24, 2006

You're asking about becoming a race director. It's a lot of work for even informal races. I've never organized any myself, but there are a lot of RDs on one of the mailing lists I'm subscribed to, and they make no bones of declaring how time consuming and frustrating it can sometimes be, although obviously rewarding as well. I searched for race director mailing list at Google, and a bunch of sites came up. I'm sure you could tweak the search and get more.

From the outside, I'd say that there are a few big areas in which you would have to organize: a sponsor (events are pricey to produce), the locality (closing a street is a major pain), volunteers (even a 5k requires a bunch of people to help). It's also very impt to wheel the course and make sure that it's the distance you say it is.

You don't say why you want to do this. In the ultrarunning world there is a tradition of barely organized races called Fat Ass runs. Basically, pick a course, put out a couple of gallons of water, tell the local runners, enjoy. Most Fat Ass RDs actually run in the events that they set up, which is not possible for more formal races. If you're just interested in the experience, you could put on a Fat Ass and then go from there. (In the case of a Fat Ass, it's important that the course be a bit longer than specified, as it increases the bragging rights.)
posted by OmieWise at 4:39 AM on January 25, 2006

Why am I running your race? Back in the dark ages, people ran for fun and fitness. Now every race must be a fund raiser for some dread disease.

Beyond that, it's much easier to get volunteers if you have a charity. If you actually had to pay all the people involved, even minimum wage, it would cost way too much to run a race. And you get a lot of free stuff by being a charity event.
posted by smackfu at 6:21 AM on January 25, 2006