The KIND in Kindness

When I was organizing the tracks n treads race, KIND had graciously offered to supply ROCK Racing with KIND bars for the racers.  I had big hopes that we would get 300 racers this year based on last years participation, but mother nature was not playing well with us and I think due to the crazy weather changes, many people were afraid to sign up.  Well, race day came and the weather could not have been more perfect.  The problem was registration was low just over half of what I had anticipated.

So we gave out these fantastic KIND bars that everyone loved, but we had some left over because KIND was so generous in the number they sent us.  This left me with a dilemma. 

I wondered what to do with the extra bars, I mean, I could have kept them and Chuck and I could have eaten them ourselves, because we love all of them, but that would be disrespectful to the generosity of KIND.

I could have taken them to the next club meeting and we could have had a nice snack during the meeting, but then again, that just felt wrong. 

I could have taken them to an animal ride and given them out to all the riders, but that felt a little wrong too.

Then I had this great idea, since my friend Krystal had just started a kids run club for 3^rd through 5^th graders at a local Boys and Girls Club, Chuck and I thought this would be a perfect place to use the KIND bars.  I had signed up to be a volunteer there, so on my first night, I took the bars to give to Krystal to use during the club practices. 

Some of the Run Club kids running with Coach Krystal

After we ran with the kids for a while Krystal gave the kids all a bar to eat, while she talked about fitness and nutrition.  I was a little leery, because usually kids aren’t good with stuff that is meant to be healthy and turn their noses up at it.  To my surprise they all liked them and almost seemed to inhale them.

One of the kids trying out a KIND bar

It made me happy that they liked them so much and I knew right then that we had made the right choice in how to distribute the extra KIND bars. 

KIND is a perfect name for these bars, because the company shows generosity and kindness while working for a healthier society, plus the bars are really tasty.  THANK YOU KIND for your efforts in helping the community stay healthy and exposing these kids to a healthy choice. 

tracks n treads 2013

Well I can’t say EVERYTHING went perfect, but I can say that it was an excellent race even with a few glitches.

So let me see if I can get tell you the story of tracks n treads in less than 100 pages.  Oh, quit moaning, I will keep it short.

As you know the weather this year has been more than crazy, we don’t know from day to day if it’s going to rain, sleet, snow, or be hot enough to jump in the pool.  So as we were just 3 weeks out from the race, and we ended up with 12 inches of snow, I was more than a little worried about anyone showing up to race. Just a week before race day, we only had about 50 entrants, but then the weather got nice and by the closing of online registration, just two days before the race, we had 105 entries. After race day registration, we had 159 entrants.  I guess I need to thank mother nature for that.  The weather was perfect, in the low 60’s at start time and the trails both run and bike were in perfect condition.

In the past we have always gotten a lot more trail runners than biathlon, but this year was different, which makes me believe that the word is getting out to the mountain biking community that this is a great race.  So here are the stats for the race.

Biathlon - 82 Male, 19 Female, 12 Team Male, 12 Team Co-ed                    

Trail Run - 10 Male, 12 Female

There are even more stats, which I love, but most people don’t so I won’t bore you with them.  Thanks to Randy from Metro Milers for leading the timing team and getting me the stats.

Now that you have the stats let me tell you a little about the day.  We had great volunteers that helped mark the course and setup the transition and finish line. 

Finish Line

Wade did a great job making the finish line interesting with a hill and a cyclocross barrier to cross, and with red bike sculptures along the finish chute. I bet there is no other race that you can get an art exhibit with your race at no extra charge.  

Bicycle Sculptures

The barrier gave spectators plenty of entertainment, watching the variety of ways people crossed the barrier.  This guy in particular was very cool.

Cool Dude jumping the barrier

All the pre-race setup was finished on Friday and on Saturday we just had to pull the race off.  We started the day with late coming information about a 5K race starting and running on some of the same course as our bikers and the race start time was about the same time as our bikers would be coming through.  Lucky for us Mike was able to reach the race director and workout a safety plan just before the race. We also found out about a canoe race so there were spectators all over the course.  We adapted to the change and no one was hurt.

Racers showed up and got registered, picking up a very cool custom printed Camelbak water bottle and KIND bars. 

Participants Schwag

The volunteers worked overtime getting everyone checked in. There were a couple bib number mix ups due to changes from trail run to biathlon, but other than that, everything went extremely smooth.  Soon we had everyone in place and after some pre-race comments, we were ready to go. Oh wait, I have one story to tell at this point.

My daughter China and her friend Jordyn had one important job to do, it was to stand at the top of Whiteside hill with the police and make sure that no cars came through as the runners crossed the road.  So Jeff, the Run Course Lead took them to their post and tells them what to do. Well as they stand there, they have a great idea to run to the car and get a blanket because it was kind of windy and they were cold.  Being teenagers, they didn’t think to check the time, so they headed back to the car and Jorydn starts to cross the street out of the cross walk, China tells her not to J walk because you can get a ticket. They get to the overpass and see the runners take off, so they turn and start running as fast as they can to get back to their post, Jordyn is running for the cross walk and China yells “just J walk” so they cross the street and are only yards in front of the first runner, they barely make it to their post as the runners pass by. 

The Race has started

They are so out of breath that they had no idea if there were cars coming or not, it’s just a good thing the police were there.  They did go back and hand out water though, at least they were good at that.

The volunteers that almost missed the race

So as you can see, the race took off at a fast pace with Travis Redden and Garrett Fulkerson running neck and neck most of the run. 

Travis followed by Garrett

Travis finished the run first and went through the finish chute, but then we noticed he was on a team, so he just ran about 200 meters out of his way and had to run over and tag his teammate.  Russ quickly ran down to the tunnel to direct the runners to make sure that didn’t happen a second time.  Garrett Fulkerson came in winning the trail run, with Renee Wilcox winning the female division of the trail run. Garrett ran a time of 27:07, while Renee finished in a smoking fast 30:52.  These were both super fast times for the difficulty of the course.

More and more people headed out on bikes while trail runners finished the race, there was an incredible race going between the 1^st and 2^nd place overall all men, Anthony Dust and Matt Fulbright were racing it out for 1^st overall with Anthony taking first in a time of 1:05:24 with Matt coming in just over a minute behind him. Melisa Lemus took 1^st place for the women in a time of 1:10:22.

Anthony Dust

Another notable finish was our club president, Mike Wever.  He competed in tracks n treads for the first time and had a pretty good finish for an old guy, but he couldn’t beat Pat or Keith, which means they will never let him live it down.

Pat

Keith

Mike

Mike at the finish

Soon it was time for the awards and other then one competitor’s time getting lost, due to a missing bib tag, all went well.  Winners took home a really cool acrylic leaf.

Cool Awards

We had several people taking photos and they can be found on the Team Godzilla website, along with the full results. 

I want to take time to thank everyone involved with this race, the Cyclery and Fitness for coming out and helping with bike needs, Wild Tracks for loaning us their cyclocross barrier, Metro Milers for doing the race timing, SIUE for allowing us to hold this race on their beautiful campus and providing police protection, KIND for donating the very tasty and nutritious bars, that everyone loved, and of course GORC for building and maintaining great trails for us to ride and run on.

A special shout out goes to all those behind the scenes that do the work no one ever sees, thanks Jeff S, Mike W, Russ D, Mike H, Andrea M, Andrea W. And lets not forget the 40+ volunteers who were out there on race day.

2014 will be our 5^th year for this event and we hope to make it our biggest and most memorable yet.  I hope to see you next year.

tracks n treads 2011

When it rains it pours or at least that is how it seems to me. Let me tell you why. I have been running my butt off for months, well maybe not really running it off, I mean when I look over my shoulder, it is very much still there, but you know what I mean. Being a race director is much more than just the glory on race day. In my case it wasn’t really glory on race day, but more of a nightmare. It was one of those DOH! How did I let that happen mistakes, but I will get to that later.

For 5 months I have been securing the date, reserving the venue, hooking us up with the Midwest Fat Tire Series, getting the race info posted on websites, securing the insurance, putting up posters, distributing entry forms, soliciting volunteers, designing shirts and awards, well really Jeff did all the designing and Dave did all the shirt ordering, I just coordinated the designs and orders, I did however get the awards ordered after a slight setback, then enlisted, Lori, Chuck, and Patrick to help engrave them. I worked with Mike to get all the supplies ordered and the porta johns setup. We all know the porta johns are one of the most important parts of a race, so at least that went well. We had marshals for everything, the run course, bike course, water stop, post race food, course setup, registration and shirt distribution. We also had all the hard working volunteers to do the grunt work. The race was really coming together well.

On Thursday night before the race we thought everything might workout, we had not gotten any of the rain that had been predicted and we hoped that the rain the weatherman was talking about was not going to hit on Friday. The good thing was we had a backup plan, an alternative course, in case the trails were too muddy to ride on.

So Friday came and the weather gods were not treating us well, it rained all day, the trails were muddy and slick. I called Scott from GORC and told him it was his call, but we would wait until Saturday morning to make it, but we both knew what it was going to be. Unless we were hit by gale force winds overnight, we would not be using the single track route.

Race day came and Scott made the call, we would not be using the single track trails, and to make matters worse the backup course had a section that was also too muddy to ride, so we had to make a third change to the bike course. Fortunately Scott had already thought out a plan that could work for us. We set out about 90 minutes before the start of the race to mark the new bike course. Since Scott knew the first part of the course he took the GORC crew and marked it. I took Chuck and Patrick and headed out to mark the back half of the course. We marked the course through the single track section we call log alley, because it is covered in logs. Good thing for foresight, Mark took a saw down to log alley on Thursday night and cleaned up some of the worse sections and he did it with a hand saw. Thanks Mark that was going above and beyond.

After marking log alley, I sent Chuck and Patrick to finish the course marking while I headed back to the start. 15 minutes before the start of the race, Patrick called to tell me the course was marked and they were at the turns waiting for the competitors to come through.




Mike and I gave prerace instructions and covered the new bike course, telling the racers to follow the red flags and chalk arrows. We hoped we did a good job of marking the course with all the last minute changes. All the volunteers were in place and Mike would lead out the runners on the Gator.



All the racers were lined up and ready to go. We had a field of 117, even with the cold temperatures we still had 20 race day signups.



It might have been the really cool shirt we gave out that drew them in.



Or it could have been the cool posters and the talk from last years racers that had them excited about the race. It may have even been the rumors of really cool awards that brought out the crowds.



Rich from Metro Milers shot the gun and the race started in a flash.



The run was fast with the runners passing the water station twice during the race. Culligan supplied the water for the racers and we had some veteran water stop volunteers manning the station.



The runners started filtering through the transition and started the bike loop, those running the 5K, came through the finish chute. The first biker came out of the transition and Mike and I led them out on the Gator. By the time we were about a mile into the course more bikers had caught up and were riding so fast that the Gator couldn’t stay in front, so we just pulled to the side and watched them pass us.

Now this is where my race director’s nightmare started. The new bike course was fast, faster than anyone anticipated. I had planned on being at the last corner into the finish and had told the volunteer that worked that corner I would be down. Well I got tied up with the results for the 5K and didn’t make it down to the turn before the volunteer left. The first place racer came through and made the turn, but the second place racer went straight, missing the turn and going about a quarter mile before realizing the error and turning around. To make it worse the next 4 guys followed him. I got to the turn just about the time they were all coming back. The mistake took some of the 5 racers out of position to place, some it didn’t make a difference in age group placing, but did give them a slower finish time.

I learned a few hard lessons as a race director, first don’t assign myself jobs, I have too much going on to take on an important job like working a major turn on the bike course. Second don’t assume that red flags, chalk arrows and pre-race comments will be enough to keep the racers on the right course. This won’t happen again on my watch.

I regret the mistakes I made and just hope that all those affected by them will return to the race next year. I promise I will do a better job in the future.

So the race was won in a smoking fast time of 53:44 by Anthony Dust. I know Anthony and knew he was a really fast biker, what really surprised me was that he is a pretty darn good runner too.




We also had a team of two 10 year olds that finished. Rory Shaw and Jacob Slosar completed the race in 1:41:15. Jacob rode into the finish followed by his mom and dad cheering him on.



Overall I think it was a good race. Everyone I spoke with after the race, really enjoyed it even with the alternate bike course. I saw a couple really favorable posts on the St Louis Adventure Racing board and the GORC forum. When people post about a race, it usually means they loved it or hated it. I’m just glad, they loved it. I hope we made the Midwest Fat Tire series proud, this is our first year with them and I want to make sure our race lives up to their standards.

Next year will be bigger and better. Lets all pray that the weather gods will be with us and we can use the single track bike course. It is a really good course. And most of all thanks to all the volunteers and sponsors, there are too many to list, but everyone did a fantastic job, especially those of you that stayed and helped with the final cleanup. Thanks to the Cyclery for being there to help the racers with bike problems. I couldn’t have done it without all the volunteers and sponsors.