Have You Ever Ran A Race and

Twice Yep, Twice that's has happened to moiimage

The first time I had to fight for my name to be added to the results  It took months.  I phoned everyone in

Canterbury, including the sponsor's.  No one had  believed me. Then I got hold of the race organiser by phone

who knew of me.  He done his investigations and got my race  time correct,  they say my number got stuck

with another runner number  LOLimage  Right!

 

Now the second time I was fumingimage

 I had 10 minutes before the race.  I said to the woman who was handing out the chip timing to phone the race organiser that I would be late for the race she said mumbled and said something like she can't get hold him. 

 

The IKEA Chip timing (You now the chip timing company)  people let me full in the complete race application, I had to give them emergency phone number,   - I paid on the day.  She asked me if I was with a Club, she must have been colour blind because I was wearing my Bromley Vets AC Vest.  The woman seriously  needs to go to Spec Savers with Sam Lambourne image  So a female spectator shouted out to the' Chip' woman she's a Bromley Vet Runner.

I smiledimage at her.  the female  spectator assisted me  with pinning my number and I fumbled to put my chip in my laces.  I moaned about putting on the chip, but managed after a little struggle.

 

Ten minutes had gone  I asked the lady who was handed out the chips where the start was.

She said to me to go to the main road, then turn right near the traffic light turned left and  you see everyone.  I was late the race had already started I was still looking red face and flustered.  She was talking so fast  I thought

whoooa. I said pleaseese show me .  so I quickly rushed to the  the lav.  And  we off the woman dashed off like wild cat I had trouble keeping up with her I started wheezing she looked  back at me as to say you not very fast.

I  half smiled image.  I got to start panting away the woman said she had taken a short cut to the start  and she also  claimed she was not runner!image

 There was not a soul at the start.  IKEA Chip timing was gone.

The lady who I followed to the start gave me some directions which I followed to the T. 

From a distance  I could  see two male runners who were also  late but they were

about 8-10 minutes ahead of me and were extremely fast runners.  Then I saw them turn off and never saw them again.

I am young gifted and Black.

Comments

  • Seems to me that you need to get better organised and turn up on time....

  • WiBWiB ✭✭✭

    Stop being a mong, get yourself organised and you will cause less issues for race organisers.

    I bet they love you.

  • Karen.Ion this occassion I have no symphathy......you must have been a nightmare for the porganisers..get yourself organised image

  • MillsyMillsy ✭✭✭
    Turning up on time may help. It's one of the first bits of advice given out to novice runners so you should really know better.
  • wow, you really needed to get that off your chest eh, Karen?

    I did a 10k on Saturday. My name appears on the results, but about 7 mins before I crossed the line. There was no chip timing, just race numbers to pin to your top, and people at the finish line with clipboards and stopwatch.

    I assume they'd given my race number to someone else, because when i went to collect it from the tent before the race, the number they had listed against my name was not in their pack, so they just gave me another number and told me they'd sort it out. clearly they didn't as the results show me finishing in 41 mins, and show my finish time of 48:14 listing just my replacement race number beside it. i feel a bit sorry for whoever got my race number because s/he doesn't have their 41 mins recognised. I've emailed them to update it, we'll see if they can/will. I'll try not to let it ruin my week though

  • PhilPubPhilPub ✭✭✭

    Don't IKEA do meatballs with their chips?

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    Karen, I could not actually be doing with reading all that, but if I got the gist, you turned up rather late, to enter on the day and expected the race organisers to run around after you and sort you out.

    Do them a courtesy in future and enter in advance or turn up EARLY to enter.

    "I said to the woman who was handing out the chip timing to phone the race organiser that I would be late for the race she said mumbled and said something like she can't get hold him."

    Perhaps if you had ASKED, and nicely, you would have got a better response?  And if it was chip timed, it doesn't matter, surely, if you start behind the others?

  • DustinDustin ✭✭✭

    from your profile:
    'Karen Samuel Golden rules for running a marathon. 1. Wake up early on the day of the race'
    and accoring to the power of 10 you're down for the 3 forts in 2011 twice, so that sort of makes up for it..
    (unless its another Karen Samuel...)

  • Get a new alarm clock and stop moaning about officals that give up thier time to help out at these races. The volunteers are often there  long before and after the race doing a great job it's not thier fault you can't get organised to get to the race on time. Or would you like them to come and wake you up with breakfast in bed and a lift to the start line!!!!! Some people........

  • DachsDachs ✭✭✭

    And there'll be more extracts from Karen's memoirs "How to Make Friends and Influence People" in the next edition.

  • Dustin wrote (see)


    (unless its another Karen Samuel...)


    PLEASE.... One Karen Samuel is more than enough

  • MillsyMillsy ✭✭✭
    I'm sure that somewhere on the website / race instructions they would have advised you to turn up a certain time before the start if the race.

    It's always worth reading that bit.



    Do you turn up at the airport 5 mins before the plane leaves?
  • GraemeKGraemeK ✭✭✭

    Aaah, Ikea meatballs are off the menu at the moment, maybe that's why.

     

    Anyway, bring back D2D.

  • 7Ps

     

    I ran a local 10K in January and didn't appear in the results. Forgot my race number and went home to get it. By the time I'd done that the roads were closed so I had to park a mile and a half a way and run to the start. Only just made it in time, but I hadn't picked my chip up so didn't feature in the results.

    Not my best performance...

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Karen, some tips for you

    1) Don't turn up at the race organisers house

    2)Get to races on time

    3)Post more, you're a nutter, and it's funny.

  • Karen I have to agree, I felt slightly sorry for you on a previous post when everyone seemed to be really rude to you but after this post I have to say that you do little to help yourself. You seem a really nice person who is passionate about running but you do leave yourself wide open to abuse.
  • Yes i have had this hapen at tunwells half last month no time recorded a pb of over 4 mins i was livid !! But this hapened to over 100 other runners it all got sorted in a couple of days sports systems .co.uk worked very hard to sort problem checking through video footage hats off to them karen i sugest as said turn up an hour early like most of us do ie sort chip and number warm up toilet dutys its part of race day prep ????????
  • to update my earlier post, I contacted the race organisers for the 10k I raced on Saturday, and politely asked if they could update the results. They were friendly and helpful and the results have now been corrected.

    You catch more flies with honey.

  • I've just finished a book called The Ghost Runner about this chap and it happened a lot to him:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tarrant_(athlete)

    Brilliant and sad story.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Hoards of us club runners have run races and not had our names in the results. The races are usually County XC's, where we run using someone elses entry.

    Only this year I fielded a quite outstanding performance only for the result to end up in the PO10 database under someone else.

    However, the result was just average for the guy whose name I was running under. The team managers have many skills.

    Of course you have to ensure that you are running slow enough not to count for medals and the like. That's a cheat too far.

    🙂

  • Quote:



    " I had 10 minutes before the race. I said to the woman who was handing out the chip timing to phone the race organiser that I would be late for the race she said mumbled and said something like she can't get hold him. "



    You wanted her to phone the race director ten minutes before the race started? When he had a million things to juggle including, you know, starting the race. To say what? "There's a late runner here. Stop everything! She needs to pee! The start *must* be delayed!"
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