I have been involved with the virtual Kiwanis Pumpkin Dash 5K these past few weeks. A virtual race is an event where a runner can enter a race without the in-person contact that many runners are worried about because of the virus pandemic. With a virtual race you enter the race, in this instance it is with Athletes Guild online. You have until November 7th to register and run the 5K distance anytime, anywhere, at your own time. One of the primary reasons for entering a virtual race is the safety and health factor and to contribute to the charity designated by the race. In the case of the Kiwanis Pumpkin Dash 5K the profits go toward scholarships for area students.
After looking at the organization and the actual ability to put on a race without having to host a race at a location it started me looking back at how putting on races has evolved. I got involved with running at the first Capital 10K in 1979. I started organizing races here in San Marcos with the Cinco DeMayo 10K out at the Civic Center on Clovis Barker Road. We ran down the access road, up Redwood (now Wonder World), down highway 123 to the back entrance to the Civic Center, and make one loop around the complex. If we wanted runners to know about the race we printed out flyers about the race and then entered area races and handed out the flyers to runners. If there were several races the same day we had members of the runners club take flyers to as many races as we could. We dropped flyers off at all the local and area runner’s stores (most running stores are gone now) and anywhere we thought there might be runners shopping. We put information about the race in nearby Runner’s Club Newsletters and running magazines. This column had the last section as a race calendar for area races.
Then after a few years the need to drive to area races was unnecessary as runners could now see race calendars on the web. The runners could even enter online and pay a little extra without mailing in a check to the race organizers. Early race entry fees were around $8 early and $10 late entry. Then prices moved up to $12 and $15 for late entries. Now the minimum is around $25 and up to $35 for a 5K race distance. Longer distance races like the half marathon and marathon can reach $100.
The finish was one person standing at the finish line with a handheld stop watch calling out the times as the runner crossed the finish. At the end of the chute a person handed the runner a finish card with a place finish number in the corner. The runner would go to a finish table and fill the card out with their name, sex, and age, and time if they remembered it. They would then drop the card into a bucket – usually one of those flower pot containers you bought at a nursery store. Each bucket had a label on it for women or men and age category. The race director would then take the cards from each bucket and the three lowest numbers in the pile were first, second, and third, in their age division. The overall champion for both the men and women were excluded. Often there was a Masters Category for any runners over the age of 40 years. After a few races one of the senior age runners told me that the older runners did not come because at age 50 years, or older, it was the same as 40 year old runners going against the younger runners. So, we started adding Senior Masters for 50 years and Grand Masters for runners 60 years and older.
Races today hire a company that will register the runner, times the runners, and places them in age categories by place and separate the overall champions, master champions, senior master champions, and grand master champions for you. No more buckets and cards to go through.
And the distances of races have gone through some changes. In the early years the most popular distance was the 10K. Then a series of 5K races started to appear because beginning runners thought they could handle 3.1 miles. When I first had Moe’s Better Half Marathon there were only a few races at that distance. Marathons numbered around five. San Antonio, Houston and Dallas were the major long distance marathons. We finally decided to quit the Better Half after33 years because of the number of half marathons now available. One year our race had to compete with four other half marathons on the same day nearby. Entries went from around 400 runners down to 225 runners. Like everything else the running world has evolved to keep up with technology and advancement in fitness.
