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Thursday Oct 24, 2019 #
Note
So you want to be a race director?
Some thoughts on Legend of the Dogman / LAS in general. In run on sentence format...
When I was in probably 2nd/3rd grade I used to draw in 2D on paper video games for fellow classmates. I would draw out these elaborate levels, where you had to say this, you go here, or do this, to move forward to get to the end of the sheet of paper. It was silly of course, but it seems I have always tried to challenge myself and others. Who knew 30 plus years later I would be designing and holding events that would challenge peers both mentally and physically.
A lot of people thanked us following Dogman, acknowledging how much work they imagined we put in. I like to think I always try to stay humble and grounded in these moments, and take in the compliments and appreciation in stride, which generally makes it worth the time, effort, and suffering is probably a harsh word, but something along those lines, all worth it.
Now that the event has passed, we have wrapped up all our duties to racers, except for a few bills to pay, and for the most part have recovered to a normal state of sleep, I have gone back and reminisced a bit on the last year or so.
After last year's Dogman 18hr, I wanted to see what was possible, so I conceived of increasing the event to 24hr so that it might serve as a pre-qualifier for the 2020 Worlds in Tahoe. I began thinking about how to possibly sanction the event to try to draw even more competitors in. In the end, it turned out to be a bit too much red tape and frankly hostility from the governing body, so decided against it. It would have been nice to put on an official sanctioned event, to see how many competitors we could have drawn, perhaps for an event in the future.
Over the winter, I began brainstorming the event's design, and went thru the normal permitting/venue reservations process. I initially thought about keeping the point to point design, but it seemed like that potentially turned some people off last year, so with the added cost, decided to drop that. Once that was decided it made the lay of the land a little bit easier as I knew I wouldn't need as much ground to cover, being that it would be an out and back course. Last year, my goal was 80k and 80 controls. It turned out to be extremely hard for mostly myself and Angel to set this. So this year I wanted to pair down the controls to 60 and increase the distance to 100k to meet the time demand. I was able to do so, yet still use some ground that was new from last year in the north part of Pinckney and also some connections west of race HQ and on the west side of Winnewanna. It took some coordinating with Igor to get a base map for the area around CP 81, but was so delighted when we finally did and were able to scout that the dam area was a viable connection.
All in all, I was looking for part one of the 24hour loop to be 10-14 hours. While the 2nd half would be the 8hr course, plus the peach mtn extension another 2-3 hours. I designed the course to be about 21-22 hours, giving 30 minutes for the Central TA, and 15 minutes at each TA1/TA2, plus an extra free hour for mistakes and pace. This was my thought process on 24 hours. That most teams if they did not have nav or motivation issues, should be able to cover the entire course with a 2.8 mph pace, which I stole from Sydney's pace last year. The 8hr course, I thought was going to be much harder to clear, as that was just about 24 miles, a stout 3mph pace, especially when I added the pre-start and bonus control. Which got added in the last week or so before maps were printed.
For those that wonder how much effort does actually go into an event like this, we spent probably 30 man hours just scouting and tagging. And then weeks of 2-3 nights a week, spending an hour or four at the computer tweaking and adjusting. Writing up instructions, map design, volunteer gathering, and all of the registration work that Angel typically does. We are talking somewhere probably in the neighborhood of 80-100 hours of work between the two of us. So when I got about 20 minutes of sleep Saturday night, but then was able to meet teams at the TAs, to see those grimaces and smiles, it does make it worth it in an intra-personal way. A month before the event, we questioned with only single digits signed up, if we would have to cancel and take a hundreds of dollars loss. With a week before registration was to close, we eeked up towards our minimum to break even and finally week of, we passed that number. So it was a relief to hit that, but it was a bit of a let down to only get about that same number as we did last year. Was really hoping to see a big increase from the previous year. For some reason, many other promotions numbers were down significantly this year as well. It definitely has us considering putting on events, larger events where there is significant overhead. It could be the market is telling us something.
We are fortunate to be able to put on events for you guys, essentially from our own money, mostly breaking even and rolling it forward to pay for the next event. At this point, LAS is somewhat of a hobby for us, rather than a true business. Which is fine for now, the amount of work to reward ratio will probably always be questionable, unless we become big enough to do it full time. We strive to be as professional and accommodating as we can to put ourselves in the racer's experience, so that you feel that you are getting what you are paying for, that's definitely important for us that you walk away with that feeling. It's nice to be able to provide what I would characterize as a community service for those that are dedicated to this genre of sports. I would like to get to a point some day of having hundreds of participants at an event, but for now we are still learning seeing what works, what doesn't, and to try to bring fun for those who are interested.
I have some ideas for scaled down events and also ideas for even bigger events. I'm planning to take a few weeks to recover mentally with a couple of upcoming vacations, before really starting to think about next year. We have NRG and GYB already scheduled for 2020, but unsure how many other events we will put on next year. I'm sure the desire to create that video game like experience for my peers will likely take over, but also I would like to enjoy some other things next year a bit as well. Finding the right balance will be key.
Some thoughts on Legend of the Dogman / LAS in general. In run on sentence format...
When I was in probably 2nd/3rd grade I used to draw in 2D on paper video games for fellow classmates. I would draw out these elaborate levels, where you had to say this, you go here, or do this, to move forward to get to the end of the sheet of paper. It was silly of course, but it seems I have always tried to challenge myself and others. Who knew 30 plus years later I would be designing and holding events that would challenge peers both mentally and physically.
A lot of people thanked us following Dogman, acknowledging how much work they imagined we put in. I like to think I always try to stay humble and grounded in these moments, and take in the compliments and appreciation in stride, which generally makes it worth the time, effort, and suffering is probably a harsh word, but something along those lines, all worth it.
Now that the event has passed, we have wrapped up all our duties to racers, except for a few bills to pay, and for the most part have recovered to a normal state of sleep, I have gone back and reminisced a bit on the last year or so.
After last year's Dogman 18hr, I wanted to see what was possible, so I conceived of increasing the event to 24hr so that it might serve as a pre-qualifier for the 2020 Worlds in Tahoe. I began thinking about how to possibly sanction the event to try to draw even more competitors in. In the end, it turned out to be a bit too much red tape and frankly hostility from the governing body, so decided against it. It would have been nice to put on an official sanctioned event, to see how many competitors we could have drawn, perhaps for an event in the future.
Over the winter, I began brainstorming the event's design, and went thru the normal permitting/venue reservations process. I initially thought about keeping the point to point design, but it seemed like that potentially turned some people off last year, so with the added cost, decided to drop that. Once that was decided it made the lay of the land a little bit easier as I knew I wouldn't need as much ground to cover, being that it would be an out and back course. Last year, my goal was 80k and 80 controls. It turned out to be extremely hard for mostly myself and Angel to set this. So this year I wanted to pair down the controls to 60 and increase the distance to 100k to meet the time demand. I was able to do so, yet still use some ground that was new from last year in the north part of Pinckney and also some connections west of race HQ and on the west side of Winnewanna. It took some coordinating with Igor to get a base map for the area around CP 81, but was so delighted when we finally did and were able to scout that the dam area was a viable connection.
All in all, I was looking for part one of the 24hour loop to be 10-14 hours. While the 2nd half would be the 8hr course, plus the peach mtn extension another 2-3 hours. I designed the course to be about 21-22 hours, giving 30 minutes for the Central TA, and 15 minutes at each TA1/TA2, plus an extra free hour for mistakes and pace. This was my thought process on 24 hours. That most teams if they did not have nav or motivation issues, should be able to cover the entire course with a 2.8 mph pace, which I stole from Sydney's pace last year. The 8hr course, I thought was going to be much harder to clear, as that was just about 24 miles, a stout 3mph pace, especially when I added the pre-start and bonus control. Which got added in the last week or so before maps were printed.
For those that wonder how much effort does actually go into an event like this, we spent probably 30 man hours just scouting and tagging. And then weeks of 2-3 nights a week, spending an hour or four at the computer tweaking and adjusting. Writing up instructions, map design, volunteer gathering, and all of the registration work that Angel typically does. We are talking somewhere probably in the neighborhood of 80-100 hours of work between the two of us. So when I got about 20 minutes of sleep Saturday night, but then was able to meet teams at the TAs, to see those grimaces and smiles, it does make it worth it in an intra-personal way. A month before the event, we questioned with only single digits signed up, if we would have to cancel and take a hundreds of dollars loss. With a week before registration was to close, we eeked up towards our minimum to break even and finally week of, we passed that number. So it was a relief to hit that, but it was a bit of a let down to only get about that same number as we did last year. Was really hoping to see a big increase from the previous year. For some reason, many other promotions numbers were down significantly this year as well. It definitely has us considering putting on events, larger events where there is significant overhead. It could be the market is telling us something.
We are fortunate to be able to put on events for you guys, essentially from our own money, mostly breaking even and rolling it forward to pay for the next event. At this point, LAS is somewhat of a hobby for us, rather than a true business. Which is fine for now, the amount of work to reward ratio will probably always be questionable, unless we become big enough to do it full time. We strive to be as professional and accommodating as we can to put ourselves in the racer's experience, so that you feel that you are getting what you are paying for, that's definitely important for us that you walk away with that feeling. It's nice to be able to provide what I would characterize as a community service for those that are dedicated to this genre of sports. I would like to get to a point some day of having hundreds of participants at an event, but for now we are still learning seeing what works, what doesn't, and to try to bring fun for those who are interested.
I have some ideas for scaled down events and also ideas for even bigger events. I'm planning to take a few weeks to recover mentally with a couple of upcoming vacations, before really starting to think about next year. We have NRG and GYB already scheduled for 2020, but unsure how many other events we will put on next year. I'm sure the desire to create that video game like experience for my peers will likely take over, but also I would like to enjoy some other things next year a bit as well. Finding the right balance will be key.