Note
June 6th is National Day. OK Linné, put on a running race called the Ekebyloppet, and so much of the club spent the morning and early afternoon down at the race arena.
This was the first year of a hopefully annual affair, and we decided to do something like this as a way to raise money for the club (CSU had the same thought with our skyline trail race in the fells).
The people masterminding the operation did a great job. I think Albin did the lion's share, but all told we had about 800 participants in a 5k,10k, and kids run format. Definitely the coolest aspect of the race was the shopping cart challenge. (Take note Biggins). With 2km to go in each of the four classes (Men's/Women's for the 5k/10k) there was a shopping cart full of prizes from the grocery store that was one of the big sponsors. So, if you were leading the race at that point, you needed to choose between having a good time or pushing a heavy cart for 2km to get a special prize. The drama involved in that decision was pretty awesome, and I wish I could have been there to witness it all.
I helped out with the kids race, which was a 1km trail loop a bit apart from the main chaos of the arena. As it was mostly for fun, we were allowing free start times during the 10am to 2pm window and we were using sportident to time the kids. As added fun, we put out 4 controls along the way the kids could punch to get split times.
Each kid got a tshirt and a slip of paper with their name on it over at the main registration. Then they followed the trail of balloons over to our table where we took the paper, gave them an SI card, explained how to use it, and then sent them off around the loop. When they got back they downloaded into the computer, got splits and then got a juicebox and a packet of candy.
It was great weather, and all the kids had a blast. The administration of the race was in fact almost a comedy of errors, but we did our best to cope and everyone was happy in the end I think :). But for next year we'll definitely need to mark the course better. A couple of irate moms were vocal when their kids spent an extra 20 minutes running around in Eriksberg :)
We helped take everything down and then headed home where I attempted to figure out which kid ran which time so that we could publish results. After many, many hours, and quite a bit of voodoo, I got a list that I think it at least 98% right. A little disappointed that these results are not yet published :) though I suppose maybe it's not so important that they are published, as the point was that all the kids had a blast and at least one kid said. I am going to run the course again, but not right now. But maybe next year.