Race Timing with Tim

When I started working for Ross at Run Away Shoes he quickly pulled me in to help at events. With experience in the shoe world, but not the event world, it was a lot of learning on the fly. After setting up a few race start areas, the tasks started to click and eventually I started to be the guy who prepped all of the race equipment. We also began to rent our equipment to other local events. As the requests grew, I took on the job of coordinating those reservations and am heavily involved in each of Run Away Event Races which has transitioned my role into the Equipment Manager of Run Away Shoes and Events.

On one cold, windy, day, Ross came to me with an idea. This idea was to start timing our own races. It didn’t seem too crazy until he told me this would be part of my duties as Equipment Manager. I have a hard enough time setting the clock on a microwave – and now he wants me to timing races!

At first I had my hopes up that it would be a set up and plug it in kind of job. It wasn’t, and I had A LOT to learn. I started talking with a race timer out of Madison to see what equipment we would need to do this. The more we talked, the longer the list got. I figured as long as we can set up the timing mats things would fall into place – fingers crossed. We still had one big thing to figure out. How do we hook it up to the internet? Thankfully, after a bit of trial and error, we got it working.

We work with a “Remote Timer” in Minnesota. This means he is able to do all the computer work over the internet while the race crew and I make sure everything is set up and working as well as keep track of the finisher manual as a backup system. This means we have to make sure a lot of things are in place before the race. 

After the race starts we don’t get much down time. We have to get the finish line tested again and make sure it’s ready for runners. This is also the time to take down the start line and put unnecessary equipment away. As runners start approaching we have to prepare to start taking down bib numbers. The timing system is the #1 source for finishers but we rely on 2 backup systems just in case a bib chip doesn’t show up. We have one person entering bib numbers into an app that our remote timer monitors to make sure bib numbers match up with what he’s seeing with the timing equipment. Another person is writing down bib numbers and times just in case things crash. Finally, once the course is clear of runners. we can start packing up the equipment and get results.