Finisher Medals

A few hours after my Charleston Distance run, I was headed down Interstate 64 listening to music playing on the radio. Out of the blue, a thought crossed my mind. This year, the race didn’t give finisher medals.

I wondered why.

Last week, I received this nice letter in the mail from the Charleston Distance run thanking me for my participation in their race along with my finisher medal.  This was a really nice gesture for them. At roughly $3 per letter and nearly 300 runners, if I remember correctly, finishing the 15 miler, they spent nearly $1000 sending out those medals. This is no small amount of money for any race.

As a runner, I truly appreciate it when I feel a race goes above and beyond to compensate runners for unforeseen circumstances. The old saying is a “Customer is always right” – even if they are wrong, it makes good business sense to send them away happy.

However, it begs the question why didn’t they give the medals out on race day. Now of course, it could have been that the medals didn’t arrive on time. Granted this was very likely scenario. Having been involved in our club’s race, I have some experience with getting custom medals made and how long it takes. In this case, the back story takes a funny twist. Granted, I heard this story via the grapevine so take it at what’s worth – hear say only.

But as the story goes, on race morning, they misplaced the finisher medals and try as they might, they couldn’t find them before the race. As I said having organized our club’s races, I found this story to be somewhat humorous yet at the same time, I can empathize with them. Race morning is a hectic time for everyone. Overlooking the most basic of tasks is quite easy to do.

I am sure next year someone will have it on their to-do list to have the finisher medals in hand before heading to Laidley field on race morning.

 

Make yourself a list,

The Cool Down Runner