At a recent NCRC meeting, I was asked by Mike whether I would be willing to help out at a couple of upcoming races, doing the same kind of job that I had done at the Half Marathon (grunt work of moving heavy things from A to B before and after the race) - I said I'd be happy to help out. Mike has been a course director for many years and had mentioned to me in the past that he'd like to show me the ropes with the idea that I might eventually take some over some of his responsibilities!
The first race (Tunnel to Towers 5K) took place this last weekend in Wake Forest. Although this was not an NCRC race, Mike was acting as race day course director (he had only recently picked up the responsibility) and Aaron was acting as race director. Mike had told me before the race that the roads would remain open throughout the race and that there would be no police support at the intersections to help manage the traffic - he was concerned about this as the course crossed a number of busy intersections and Wake Forest residents are not used to having runners on the roads like the residents of downtown Raleigh (also, most races in Raleigh are on closed roads).
I met Mike at 6am (the race was scheduled to start at 8am) and we collected road barriers and cones, tables, water and trash cans for the two water stops from the Fire House and moved them in to position. We dropped cones along the busiest portion of course to help keep the runners away from moving vehicles, but didn't have anywhere near enough to cover the course. Mike had identified 27 locations on the course where we would require course monitors and we drove around the course and looked at the couple of dangerous intersections that had to biggest chance of runner/vehicle collisions.
We met the volunteer course monitors at 7:25 and found that only 22 had turned up. Mike explained their responsibilities and what to do in the case of an emergency. We then provided them with their reflective orange vests, thanked them for volunteering and sent them out to their locations on the course. We checked with Aaron about whether the missing volunteers had checked in at the registration desk (they hadn't) and managed to pick up one extra volunteer who was looking to help out. We shuffled a couple of volunteers to different locations and determined that we would have to take a location each.
There were two major problem locations on the course:
one where the runners had to cross a working traffic signal at the intersection of two main roads
the other where the runners had to enter a main road on one side, run for 100 yards and then exit on the other side.
A volunteer (who happened to be a fire fighter) took the traffic signal, and Mike and I took the other intersection.
I was positioned at the first intersection that the runners encountered (top of the map), at which point they would turn right and head Mike's intersection that Mike, at which point they would take a left turn. Both sides of the road had sidewalks, but they were uneven and not suited for safe running, so we wanted the runners to stay in the road. I positioned myself at the intersection looking along the road that the runners would be approaching on. I could see runners approaching me from at least 200 yards away, so I had plenty of time to stop traffic as the runners approached the intersection.
As the runners approached, I stopped the traffic on the main road on the side that the runners entered the intersection (traveling top to bottom on the map), I then directed the runners to stay to the right until the got closer to Mike's intersection, at which point he would stop the traffic traveling in the other direction (traveling bottom to top on the map, the didn't have to worry about vehicles traveling top to bottom, as I had already stopped them). This intersection was at 2.6 and 2.7 miles on the race course, and by the time runners and walkers got to this location, they were spread out. I timed the first and last runner/walker and the total elapsed time between them was 55 minutes!
The runners came in bunches, and I was able to allow traffic to pass in the gaps. For the most part, people were understanding and I smiles or nods of the head to my thanks yous as they passed me. It proved difficult to have Mike release and stop the traffic at the times that I wanted (as I could see the approaching runners) and I had to be cautious that I told runners not to attempt to cross the road until the traffic was stopped - this was impossible for the runners that were wearing headphones - but I guess they got the message when they saw the oncoming vehicles.
When the walkers began coming through, Mike suggested that we change our approach and have them use the sidewalks. I stopped traffic in both directions and asked the walkers to cross the road at my location and use the sidewalk to Mike's intersection. This worked smoothly, and I was able to allow the traffic to flow and not have to worry about whether Mike had his side stopped. Of course, this wouldn't have worked for the runners, as we would have been forcing them on to the uneven sidewalk.
When the final walker passed, we drove back along the course picking up cones and water stop equipment and returned to the start/finish line to thank our remaining volunteers.
I learned a lot about course directing on the day of a race on probably one of the more difficult course layouts that I will encounter. The majority of Raleigh road races have roads closed and a Police presence, but it was valuable for me to see what would happen if that wasn't the case!
This weekend I am helping Mike at the Magnificent Mile in downtown Raleigh. This race will be different again as it is only a mile long, will not have a water stop and the roads will be closed for the duration of the race. Last years winner ran a 4:10 mile, so I am looking forward to being able to see that!
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