Wednesday, June 25, 2008

South Ogden Days 5k

For the second year in a row, my family ran in the South Ogden Days 5k. It was a ton of fun and great atmosphere for the family. Delena and I beat our time from last year by about 10 minutes and really enjoyed the new route. If you haven't had a chance to participate in this event, you need to. I hope to have some pictures to post later.

Tonight is the South Ogden Days parade and will have a great time watching the parade from 40th street.

For more info go to the South Ogden Website

Suggestions for next years 5k:

Having organized a number of 5k in the past, I know how hard it is to put these together. The new chips that they used were awesome and made the results very easy to produce.

  • But nothing is worse than starting late. It says a lot about your organization if you can't start on time. For two years in a row this event has started nearly 20 minutes late.
  • There is no clear starting point marked.
  • Route maps should be on the website so we can see where we are going.
  • The route maps should be correctly drawn. They had to split the first place runners because one person went the wrong way. Top runners will run this in 13 or 14 minutes. You don't have time to sit down and have a coke after the race starts. You need to go straight and setup your finish line.
  • For the second year in a row, the random number generator they used for drawings chose the same name about 10 times. Just do a drawing.
  • The prizes were odd this year. Bird House making books and free bags of coffee. Maybe we should win health and fitness related prizes? This is a fitness related event, but anything is better then the free McDonald's gift certificates from last year.
  • Registration should not be in the Bowery, there is not enough room. Move it to an open area so people can move around.
  • Parking was crazy as usual.
I think they need just a little more planning in how to setup and run the 5k. This event could be even bigger, but it seems to be so disorganized when you get there. When we asked people where to begin, route info, etc. Nobody seemed to know what was going on. I saw the Mayor there, but he was just chatting with some buddies. Was he worried we started late?

Monday, June 23, 2008

South Ogden Days

It has been nearly a two months since I have posted to the blog. I learned long ago, if you have nothing to say; don't force a post.

However South Ogden Days starts this week and it should be very exciting. Our family will be at the Twilight run tomorrow and the parade. We will try and keep things posted.

To learn more, go to www.southogdencity.com