TOP 10 HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR RACE DIRECTORS
My kids recently asked me what I wanted for Christmas? I always struggle to come up with what I want as I really have everything I need, so it seems. Then I thought, as a Race Director, what do I need or better yet what do I want for Christmas? It didn’t take long to come up with this Top Ten Race Director Gift List:
#10 ZIP TIE CATCHER: At the conclusion of every race, we usually have many folks helping to breakdown and thus cutting zip ties with snips. As such, they tend to fall to the ground and sometimes never get picked up and then we hear about it from the residents of the community. This “catcher” will catch every tie cut and contain it, thus no ties should ever hit the ground anymore!
#9 NEVER-FAIL AIR HORN: There is nothing more embarrassing when you hand a dignitary an air horn to officially start your race and they go to sound it and it is a big dud! This happens mostly in cold weather. No matter, we need air horns that will sound loud and clear under any and all conditions!!
#8 NYLON FENCE ROLLER: Enough is enough with us breaking our backs trying to roll up thousands of feet of nylon fencing after every race. We could use a roller with a hand crank at waste height to easily roll up all this fencing.
#7 ROAD CONE PLACER AND PICK-ER-UPPER: This would be the gift of all gifts for a race director. Imagine not having to have to lift, place and pick up thousands and thousand of road cones anymore. However, this machine might just put me out of a job!
#6 PULL TAG STARTER FOR TOLIET PAPER ROLLS: Don’t you absolutely hate it when you go into a fresh port-o-john and takes you about 1 ½ hours to get a paper roll started? Why don’t they just put pull tags on them so you can easily get it started? I want one of those!
#5 SAN DIEGO WEATHER ALL THE TIME: Enough is enough with cold and rain and wind and even extreme heat! Can’t we have one nice day once in a while to put on a race. This past Thanksgiving was the coldest one on record!! What the heck? And Boston this year...the cold, the wind, the rain...could it get any worse? When is it our turn to get some nice weather?
#4 THE GUYS FROM 1-800-GOT-JUNK: At the end of each race it just seems like there are three people left to pick up all the trash. There’s a local commercial for 800-GOT-JUNK where they say “all you need to do is point” and they’ll make your junk disappear. Well, all I want to do is point and have them make our trash disappear!
#3 T-SHIRT REPLACEMENT: Most everyone loves t-shirts, I know. But what a challenge it is for race directors to know what to order, what style of shirt, how many and what sizes for EACH gender. Can’t we just give out a one-size fits all hat or a mug or give everyone a goldfish or something?? Ha. What’s the next best thing to a t-shirt that doesn’t involve sizing or gender?
#2 WORLD PEACE: I want world peace for all the right and proper reasons like everyone else, but as a race director, it would be nice to someday get back to producing and running in races without all the security, bomb dogs, blocking vehicles, screening stations, etc. It’s just too bad it has to be this way but we all would agree that it is better to be safe!!
...and the Number 1 gift a Race Director could receive for the holidays is...
#1 YOUR RACE MAKES THE COVER OF NE RUNNER SOMEDAY AND YOU GET A LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTION TO THE BEST RUNNING MAGAZINE IN THE COUNTRY! OK, just kidding on the cover, but, a lifetime subscription to NE Runner would simply be the best gift EVAH!! Ok, did I “suck up” enough??
Happy Holidays to all!
Dave McGillivray