Selecting a race site

Okay, it's time to get this blog off the ground. Sorry for the delay -- it's been a very, very busy spring!

In recent months, we have been approached by individuals and organizations who want to host a road race, but don't necessarily have a location lined up. This begs two questions: what do race directors look for in selecting a race site, and what do participants look for in selecting a race to run.

As race directors, here are just a few things we take into consideration:

• Is there opportunity to create a safe and certifiable course? Safe goes without saying. If you can't get ten people through the course without fearing for their life, it's probably not the best location. And although there's no rule that every road race has to be certified, we've all been at one where you hear runners say "gosh, mile two was way short" or "there's no way this was just a 5K!"
  
• Number of agencies/organizations involved in the approval process. The more there are, the longer it could take, and the less likely that every last one of them will agree. Follow the K.I.S.S. rule here! Better yet, have an "in" with the location -- this often, but not always, makes wheels spin more smoothly.
  
• What amenities does the location bring to the table? Is there a building to which you'll have access, or are you pitching tents? Are there sufficient bathrooms, or are you bringing in porta-potties? Is there sufficient parking, or will there be more swearing? Access to a kitchen, or BYOB?
  
• Look for the not-so-obvious road blocks on the course. Stick a church in the middle of a course on a Sunday morning and see what happens. Better yet, turn on your speaker system that same Sunday at 9am for registration across the street from a church and see who comes running. By no means are we making fun of the churches -- they unfortunately sometimes pay a high price when a committee forgets to include them in their planning!

We asked a few of our friends in Somerville Road Runners to talk about what they look for as participants, whether running on their own or in a formal road race. Here's what they had to say:

• Beautiful scenery: woods, rivers, beaches
  
• Destination races: Berkshires, Vineyard
  
• Challenging courses with hills when training hard, and not-so-challenging courses when you're hardly training
  
• Plenty of parking or T-accessibility
  
• Good people, wide variety of participants (age, ability)
• Fun after-party, good food
• Uniqueness of a race (its theme, parts of the course) or simply a good cause to support

What do you have to add? Post your comments!

Why we started NEEM

Tom and I first met in 1998, fittingly enough at a road race. At the time, the Somerville Road Runners hosted the Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, an annual Thanksgiving morning road race, at the Genoa, a bar just outside Teele Square in Somerville. A wonderful guy I worked with at the time was dating a woman who would become my best friend. I had run my first marathon (Boston) and at their urging showed up for the race somewhat hungover from Thanksgiving-Eve activities. Not thinking she was setting fate in motion, my girl friend introduced me to Tom, a guy in the club whom she adored. The rest, as they say, is history.

Over the years, our life has revolved around road races, whether as participants, volunteers or directors. Somewhere along the way, more than one person told us we should consider starting a company to direct races. Tom was the big picture, ideas guy. I was the details, cross the T's and dot the I's girl. We complement each other tremendously -- hence the acceptance of the proposal in 2002 (no, he decided not to propose at the Boston finish line) and marriage in 2003 (yes, my bachelorette party did in fact include a road race)!

Once the wedding was over, we took a deep breath and looked at each other. We've each directed several races. We are even intentionally re-recruited as volunteers for other races because we manage certain roles well (we hope!). More than one person has urged us to start doing this "for real." Maybe we should...

New England Event Management was born.

Right now, we specialize in road races; in the future, we may or may not expand to other events. We prefer to work with charities, or companies who will commit a good portion of the proceeds to local charities. We decided what we definitely would not do (we're not a timing company, we won't supply volunteers, and we won't oversee your sponsorship program), but are good at what we do offer (we recommend vendors we know and trust, we will train your volunteers, and I'm always willing to offer suggestions about your sponsorship strategy!). We are clear with our clients that this is a second business for us; our primary employers must and will come first. So we limit the number of events we direct in a given season, and our contracts require that our clients be able to meet during evenings or weekends. So far, we're having a ball and feel that we've done right by them!

Why NEEM? Tom gets credit for the name, the acronym, the website (which he snagged back in 2003 when the company was, as they say, just a twinkle in his eye - can you imagine racedirectors.com was available?), the logo, and, not surprisingly, the name of this blog. He's the ideas guy.....I'm details.

This blog is a new frontier for us, a bit of an experiment. We hope to post polls on questions that plague directors (e.g., whether or not to offer prize money), bring in thoughts from our friends and colleagues in the 'biz, and offer some insight. You'll discover there's no one solution out there, but perhaps you'll learn from us and others. As I said, this is an experiment -- run with it!

Welcome!

We've only just begun.......
Deep thoughts, coming soon!