Race Director Interview: Cliff Bosley Bolder Boulder Part I

Boulder, CO, (May 2013). I met Cliff at Bolder Boulder race headquarters before lunch and between appointments- it is a busy for the race director. He is dressed in a white dress shirt and tie. He has been to state legislature earlier in the morning. He has a full day of planning and meetings ahead, but still is relaxed and ready to talk Bolder Boulder. 

Thomas:  Less than a month to go, (Cliff laughs 25 days as of today-Thomas laughing ) You probably know the number of hours too..

Cliff: Well 24 days and about 20 hours..

Thomas: It probably seems like it tomorrow based on the way you are running around. This is the 35^th time for the Bolder Boulder. When you started could you have ever imagined this amazing.

Cliff: I don’t know. When the race first started, I think the first year’s race we had the race finishing in North Boulder Park in 1979 and there were 2700 people. And at the time when we were promoting it with a poster and it said race limited to the first 4,000 people. And I  remember now…

Thomas:  (laughing) Is that a wave now? 

Cliff:  Yeah! I remember at the time I was part of a Boy Scout troop. My troop passed these posters out door to door. And I saw this guy standing out by his front door reading this and scoffed a little and said something like, what does a 12 year old kid know.  And I was thinking you know-you never know-I did not know anything about that statement the race limited to the first 4,000 people. I just knew my dad was doing it and it was cool and it was going to work. So the next year the raced moved to Boulder High and it doubled in size. And then the next year it increased by another 60%. And so I don’t know there was ever a thought that it could be 50,000 people. I think a lot of the early thinking was you know the stadium holds 50,000 people and everyone came with a friend there would be 100,000. So by default we were thinking that maybe 25,000 would be the number of people would come. But I think as we started doing the wave start in the early 80’s you know the wave start takes 2 and a half hours.  There are people still signing up to register after people have been done for an hour. And that is awesome. It spreads the day out more too. So it can really be 50,000 people.

Thomas: It is amazing when you think about a race of 50,000 people that you would have some runners who probably register the day after the previous years race is completed. And then you have others who wake up and race day, see the weather is good, and decide hey let’s go run the Bolder Boulder today. That has to speak to a number of things like the popularity of the race, and especially the organization.

Cliff: Thank you!

Thomas: This really is a combination of a lot of things: sponsors, organization, volunteers, everything. I know you were down at the legislature even today –this event is really a community outreach.

Cliff: You bet. And that’s how the race got founded. It was  initially envisioned a track meet for kids. But when the advice came back that hey a track meet is going to be a lot of work, why don’t you put on a road race and my father asked the question, What’s a road race? And here we get to stand 34 years later we stand  on the cusp of running the race for the 35^th time.  I guess, good for me he asked the question what is a road race? I might be doing something different had he not asked that question.

Thomas: So talk about that. I’ve talked to a number of runners, joggers and even elite athlete’s  and one of the draws to the race other than the great organization, highly competitive field, and  the number of runners, is how unique the race is in that you have the stadium finish.

Cliff: You bet!

Thomas:  When folks  come into the stadium, and maybe not in those early waves that start before 7:30 in the morning, but when they come in in a hour or two hours after the race has started, there are lots of people in the stadium, it’s noisy, and it really can be an Olympic moment for a lot of people.

Cliff:  Yeah I think it is. Maybe for some of those earlier people too. The venue is unique. You are right, probably more like an hour into it where the stadium is full, there is music, people are excited, you can hear people outside the stadium not just at mile 6, but then you know there 2 tenths left and that is exactly right the stadium finish, for a lot of people that is their Olympic moment. That is their opportunity to think and maybe feel that this must be what it is like to be in the Olympics. In fact that is what we have heard our pro athlete’s say-there is nothing quite like this. Outside of the Olympics, where else do we get to have a stadium finish in front of 50,000 fans?

Thomas: So true. And even for the runners and joggers who aren’t as competitive as some, the race is still a tremendous draw-there is a lot history-you have a page on the Bolder Boulder website where people can tell their story. There  are a lot of families who mark the event as a yearly passage of time-maybe the finish isn’t an Olympic moment in terms of time, but it is in terms of emotion and family history. That has to be rewarding as a race director.

Cliff. It is. Last year there were 51,681 that registered. So we say there are 51,681 stories and it’s one experience. And you are exactly right. Everyone has a story that’s part of the Bolder Boulder experience. And just this year we have the stories on facebook. We launched a campaign, I am Bolder. What’s your story? And we will have the three final videos posted soon where people can vote on what they think is the best I am Bolder story. The interesting part is that this is just a snapshot. Two years ago, we had our 1,000,000^th finisher. So there have been more than 1,000,000 people who have connected with the race.