Or how to NOT to make friends with the Race Organisers....

If you really want to liven up the lives of the Race Organisers please follow as many of the points listed below as you can! The original text for this tongue in cheek guide is by John Schofield who wrote most of it for publication in "Northern Runner". It appears in its original form on the UK Results Website and is used here in an edited form with his kind permission.

Write illegibly...

Ensure that your entry form is completed as illegibly as possible. This means that the Race Director and/or the results drones can have a good laugh, on the morning of the race, trying to decipher your scrawl, when they have nothing better to do. Also, if you belong to one club of several in a town, just mark the town name for the club. The organiser is bound to know which club you're in!

Don't fill in all of the entry details...

Don't mark your sex/age/date of birth on the form. It adds a bit of interest to an otherwise mundane job as you try to calculate an age category or to remember whether Frances and Lesley are male or female. Or just put an initial for your first name and don't tell us your sex. We can work this out from your handwriting.

Enter one race, run another...

There is the main race and there is a fun run. You have entered one but you fancy doing the other instead. No problem - just pin your existing number on and do whichever you want. Even more entertaining if the race organiser has used the same type and range of numbers for both races!! (What a fool)

Make us supply the SAE & don't sign your cheque...

Don't forget to forget the SAE requested - nothing we like better than addressing and making up our own envelopes and paying for postage out of the tight race budget! Oh, and do not forget that you do not really have to sign that cheque you are sending (if you remember to enclose it!).

Save money, why enter?...

Alternatively, why bother to enter at all? Just put on your shorts and join in the fun. The event makes enough money anyway AND you get a free souvenir AND you do not want to be on the results anyway (but you ran across the finish line just in case.....)

Arrive late...

Turn up with one minute to go before the start and insist on holding everyone up while you run to the start line, then run back to registration to get some pins, then find someone to put your number on your back, then on your front. No-one minds a latecomer, especially if the rain is horizontal. After all, you are paying a premium for being a latecomer (maybe it should be £5 extra in the last 10 minutes....)

Hide your Race Number...

Wear your number on your back, inside your shorts, on your other jumper (the one in your car boot), on the tracksuit you left with your spouse at the start. You spoil all the fun if you just pin it on the front of your vest! Or wear it upside down, for a bit of variety. Especially good with numbers like 966, 161, 66 and so on. Some organisers spoil things, though, by printing stuff on the number in an effort to get you to wear it the right way up! But then, you could always fold up or cut off the silly printed bits and still get your number upside down......

Run through the finish more than once...

Do not just get your race souvenir and wander off for your lunch. Why not jog back out down the course to meet your friends who still have to finish and then run back in with them. After all, the timekeepers will recognise you from the first time you finished and they would not be daft enough to note you down again, would they?

Ignore the Marshalls

After crossing the finish line, ignore those pointless Marshalls in the yellow jackets shouting at you to stay in line and keep moving. What do they know?!!? You have just run a race, for goodness sake. They have just been idly standing around all morning. As soon as you have crossed the line, stand around yourself and have a good chat with your mates over the barrier. The results can easily be re-compiled after you have pointed out where everyone else came in behind you. Better still, just duck out of the funnel.

Change places in the finish funnels

Of course, if you do not want the souvenir you have paid for, just duck out under the funnel tape between the finish line and the number recorders. That way, you will avoid the silly woman with the medals, mugs or whatever and it is a real hoot watching the faces in the results room when they try to work out where all the extra times have come from (it is usually the other way round, with more numbers than times, so you will be correcting an imbalance).

Get you time from the computer straight away...

So that you can get away quickly, find out where the results are being compiled. The person in there will love a bit of a rest for a few minutes from typing in all those numbers. They'll happily stop to chat with you and let you know where you came and what your time was. They'll also enjoy a lengthy discussion about whether your time was recorded correctly. In fact, it would be an ideal opportunity to tell them that you actually finished several places ahead of where your number is on the sheet, because you stopped to have a chat or a stretch after the line. If you can't get to the results area, the timekeepers usually don't mind being interrogated while you stand over their shoulders or in front of them or whatever.

Mess up the Prizes...

At the prize-giving, it helps if you can wait until all the prizes have been distributed before you point out that your age category is wrong or that you ran in your spouse's number and they had yours. But that should have been obvious to the marshals at the finish, shouldn't it? It's always easy to get prizes back.

Argue about the course measurement / placing of distance markers...

Isn't GPS a wonderful invention? Now you can plague the organiser before/during/after the race with how you dispute the distance(s) and that the course is really 12.75 metres long/short and that's spoilt your pb and you won't come back again next year because the course isn't accurate and anyway we didn't say there was a 50 metre climb at half way and ............... (yawn!)