For a long while I was never interested in race management but for a bunch of reason it really appeals to me right now. Among other things, I'm kind of fascinated by little known details.
For example, did you know that the number you wear on your helmet for triathlons has nothing to do with the race? It's so the photographer can identify you in the pictures he/she takes. Additionally, I found out a little nugget about race timing today. As semi-predicted, I wasn't in the official race results. My mom was talking to me about the race and since she never got my finishing time text she asked if it mattered if I didn't have an official time. My reply: Not unless you're trying to place (C was actually 2nd woman in a race I was at but they lost her paper card so they apologetically fixed the scoring-albeit after the awards ceremony-but they still gave her cool swag!) or qualify for something. (Upon reflection I would also add that it matters if it's your first race or first triathlon or first IM or any race that you really care about. It's kind of cool, especially if you're new, to see the finished product of your training.) But for me, for this race, it didn't really matter to me. I had my watch time (I was off by one second, final chip time 1:22:05) and I was pretty content. I've also been racing so much that I'm a little burnt out so my level of caring is slightly diminished and missing one race time out of five is less of a big deal than missing one race time out of one. {But after next weekend's Muddy Buddy I'm not racing for a month. I don't even really have much of a summer schedule. I'll hopefully be doing a lot of local free and cheap racing. And I kind of want to [mumble mumble mumble] train for a [mumble] fall marathon [mumble]. But I digress.}
That said, I paid my money for the race, I finished, and I was pretty sure they could find me if alerted to the problem. Having an official time is cooler than not having an official time (I can quickly google it later for example) and there is no harm in nicely and casually inquiring about whether or not they could get me one. I sent an e-mail yesterday and by 11 AM today the timing people had found me and I was in the results. The primary mat failed to catch me coming in but the backup mat had "done it's job" and I was "golden." I was added in to the official results (with splits) with no problem.
I was pretty sure there are backup systems at big races because (1) I thought I had heard of such things using manually recorded bib numbers and 2) would you want to be the timing person telling the first-time marathoner or the BQ marathoner there was no official time?-but I didn't know about the backup mats option (but what if a chip itself is broken??). So this was a lesson learned in timing technology.
Also, the race website has a race simulator feature. Once the results are posted you can select different runners to race against each other (one scenario I selected was me, C, and L) and the simulator shows little people running on the race course at their race pace like in a video game. I found the simulator a bit inaccurate-people aren't finishing in the right order which would seem key to me-but amusing.
Also, I'm sore. I'm not trail running sore, but for the first time I did not walk down the escalator steps. I let it slowly carry me down to the metro system so I would not have to descend of my own power.
My cousin is in town interviewing so 7 of us went out to dinner last night (me, two cousins, two siblings, my sister's bf, and my brother's houseguest). This was fun because 1) Clyde's has 1/2 price wine on Sunday's 2) I had barely eaten all day b/c I felt kind of sick after the race 3) these peeps are a good time. After refueling at dinner I felt so so so wonderful. Then I slept for 9.5 hours. It was a good day.
