There aren't any races in our area and I don't want to have to keep doing 4+ hour road trips for all of them. Anyone know how to go about getting one started locally?

Align yourself with a charitable organization? That might be a start. In my town of 50,000, there are races to raise money for a group against domestic violence, a fairly rare disorder, an arts organization, and a high school track team. Actually, the high school track team organizes two races--one on July 4 and another that takes place during a local festival.

Our library network (7 libraries) has held a 5K race for the last 11 years. We've been fortunate to have the help of a retired gym teacher/track coach/devoted runner. He makes sure that we get the race listed in the Runner's Calendar each year, and laid out the original course (and when we had road closures a couple years ago, he laid a new route for us) and most importantly of all, a guy who volunteers to do all the time calculations. I'm sure there's a software program out there to do that, but I suspect that the timing part would be the most important thing.

For our race, I get the permits (from the state dept of transportation since we are partially on state roads), organize volunteers for registration, water stations, directional information, and general aid (this one rides a golf cart back and forth along the route). We t-shirts and sometimes other food. I'd suggest you talk to some folks in your area that may have experience in this sort of thing. A good thing to tie it to is some sort of festival that already exists. PM me if you want any more specifics.

I feel like I should point out that if 4+ hour roadtrips are a hardship for racing, then organizing a local race, which is an enormous amount of work after which you wouldn't (likely) be able to race it yourself, is not going to make local racing easier.

Having said that, if you want to do it as a community-building kind of thing, wonderful!

Anne

Good point!

First off, yes, I think it would be a great thing for our area. Secondly, seeing as I'm definitely more sadist than masochist, I would just like to spark a fire in someone else who actually likes the chaos and zillions of hours of work that would go into it. I seem to have a talent for getting things going and then luckily stumbling upon others who actually like the part of keeping it going.

Thanks for the ideas, everyone! I've sent out a few feeler emails and will see what kind of official response I get before I get my hopes up.