Tho-Run: So Steve part of the big news this year is the course change. I can’t imagine that you just decided to change the course over night.
Steve Bosley: (Laughing).Well that was us. Yeah that was us. We’ll jump to that.
How it came about is a much longer story but let’s hold off on that. It was in one of our brainstorming sessions, you know maybe such and such might work because if we really look at this we can bring more buses into this new area. You know where the buses came in before with the drop offs the traffic was just terrible. So we said let's move the start closer to the finish line, then buses will have a dedicated route in to town and cars for drop off will have two dedicated drop off zones.
Well; taken together rather than separately, that’s all huge....all those things. Some people talked about tradition and you're giving up the history of the start, the race will lose something. And you know we’ve been planning this for three years! (laughing) We’ve probably got 1200-1500 hours into this.
Judging and planning and all the ramifications and we know we will have missed some things. You just can't, like know for example what is the optimal placement of the port o potties?
But we’ll know after we that first race in. But the issues of how and when you shut the streets down and what time. All that we are really good at. Then we think about just the confusion of two thirds of the runners coming this year will have been to the other starting line. So what does that look like? So there is going to be something that pops up but we don’t think there will be anything of major importance we just look for every single detail.
How it came about is a much longer story but let’s hold off on that. It was in one of our brainstorming sessions, you know maybe such and such might work because if we really look at this we can bring more buses into this new area. You know where the buses came in before with the drop offs the traffic was just terrible. So we said let's move the start closer to the finish line, then buses will have a dedicated route in to town and cars for drop off will have two dedicated drop off zones.
Well; taken together rather than separately, that’s all huge....all those things. Some people talked about tradition and you're giving up the history of the start, the race will lose something. And you know we’ve been planning this for three years! (laughing) We’ve probably got 1200-1500 hours into this.
Judging and planning and all the ramifications and we know we will have missed some things. You just can't, like know for example what is the optimal placement of the port o potties?
But we’ll know after we that first race in. But the issues of how and when you shut the streets down and what time. All that we are really good at. Then we think about just the confusion of two thirds of the runners coming this year will have been to the other starting line. So what does that look like? So there is going to be something that pops up but we don’t think there will be anything of major importance we just look for every single detail.
Tho-Run: There is also the dynamic of the father son pass off of the race that Cliff is running the event.
Steve Bosley: So many times in a business the son or daughter takes over and all of these changes happen, but Cliff said I don’t want to change anything, I don’t even know what going on! Well he’s worked on the race since the first one.
He and his sister sat in Frank Shorter's office door when they were…let’s see 12 and 13 registering people on the weekends. And they talk about how cheap I was back then because for doing that they got to eat at the New York Deli which was right next door (laughing). Which they loved!!
So Cliff has literally, before he took over as race director he has been in charge of every aspect of the race. And all he did, no the only thing he did, I want to emphasize the important, he looked at streamlining everything he possibly could. Like a watch….and you can't you say for years we maintained a reputation as the most innovative race. Cliff helped insure that.
We’re always coming up with something. For several years the media would say what are you doing differently this year? Well how do you measure the thousand little things that smooth this piece out and that so when suddenly you put them all together the race just has a different feel to it. That everything just works.
He and his sister sat in Frank Shorter's office door when they were…let’s see 12 and 13 registering people on the weekends. And they talk about how cheap I was back then because for doing that they got to eat at the New York Deli which was right next door (laughing). Which they loved!!
So Cliff has literally, before he took over as race director he has been in charge of every aspect of the race. And all he did, no the only thing he did, I want to emphasize the important, he looked at streamlining everything he possibly could. Like a watch….and you can't you say for years we maintained a reputation as the most innovative race. Cliff helped insure that.
We’re always coming up with something. For several years the media would say what are you doing differently this year? Well how do you measure the thousand little things that smooth this piece out and that so when suddenly you put them all together the race just has a different feel to it. That everything just works.
Tho-Run: I blog and race each year and look at all aspects of a race. How easy is it to register? Where do you park? What does the shirt look like? Is the course accurate? Is the timing accurate? Marshalling, everything—even post race food. I talk to folks too- I have to tell you as impressed as I am with the race, it’s really one of the few events I run each year where my only concern is how fast I’m going to run!
Steve Bosley: laughing…We send our guys to other races all the time. And one of the instructions Cliff gave them was go in and register for the race. Be an ordinary person. Do all the things someone would do on race day. And then write down when you are done…where were you nervous?
Where were you wondering what was next? And, the fun part of that was that hey we found you know we are doing all of that!! The great part of going to other races, and Cliff and I still go to other races, is that we come back with pages of notes and ideas that this almost happened what do we do here? Or can we prevent that? Not in any way, shape, or form to say we never have that problem-baloney-we know there’s a fine line between being inches away from problems all the time.
Where were you wondering what was next? And, the fun part of that was that hey we found you know we are doing all of that!! The great part of going to other races, and Cliff and I still go to other races, is that we come back with pages of notes and ideas that this almost happened what do we do here? Or can we prevent that? Not in any way, shape, or form to say we never have that problem-baloney-we know there’s a fine line between being inches away from problems all the time.
Tho-Run: Another aspect of the race is the chip timing. There are some races I do where I don’t see results for days or even a week. In BB you have results immediately-- for thousands and thousands of runners.
Steve Bosley: Isn’t that neat? You notice we didn’t go to the chip system for ten years?
That’s when it first came out. But every time we looked at it and looked at the races and the prices and looked at what it was, well the prices were a killer. But we weren’t driven to move to chips because the accuracy of our timing system was so great. Before the chip, our timing was so good that it really created a question—how do you do this?
It really was a system that evolved in the first few years that we perfected. We would ask people in the surveys How accurate was your time? And one answer would be what is your perception of how accurate was your time? If you think three seconds is ok, then it’s accurate. If you buddy says three seconds off is not accurate then it’s not. It’s all about customer or runner satisfaction. When we would ask more specifically –were we right on, were we plus or minus one second, three seconds, whatever, the accuracy rate was, or the customer satisfaction rate was phenomenal. Well again the media started writing about us and we were accurate with our timing so we weren’t driven to it, to the chip. We waited a couple of years, well then we just developed our own system and went with it.
That’s when it first came out. But every time we looked at it and looked at the races and the prices and looked at what it was, well the prices were a killer. But we weren’t driven to move to chips because the accuracy of our timing system was so great. Before the chip, our timing was so good that it really created a question—how do you do this?
It really was a system that evolved in the first few years that we perfected. We would ask people in the surveys How accurate was your time? And one answer would be what is your perception of how accurate was your time? If you think three seconds is ok, then it’s accurate. If you buddy says three seconds off is not accurate then it’s not. It’s all about customer or runner satisfaction. When we would ask more specifically –were we right on, were we plus or minus one second, three seconds, whatever, the accuracy rate was, or the customer satisfaction rate was phenomenal. Well again the media started writing about us and we were accurate with our timing so we weren’t driven to it, to the chip. We waited a couple of years, well then we just developed our own system and went with it.
Tho-Run: It seems like there are really three races on the big day. You’ve got the professional race, runners and then you have the joggers and walkers.
It’s only been in the last 8-10 years that we called the one of the races “The Professional Race”. We don’t have a VIP party, we have a special guest party-I don’t like those terms, VIP, Elite.
Other races would specialize in having a so, so race (citizens) and focus on the professionals-I never believed the two to be mutually exclusive. In the end for us, how much is all that attention to just a pro race worth to your sponsors or to the thousands of runners who run in your race? We like to hear our runners and sponsors say hey that is really a cool event we are a part of! And we will keep working to keep that going.
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