Race Organizers Need to Post Results

I have participated, starting with February's half-marathon here in Gainesville, in one running race per month. This year marks my greatest participation in races ever and I'm having a fun time doing it. So far, I've run:

February: LifeSouth Five Points Half-Marathon
March: Climb for Cancer 15K
April: Run Amuck With the Duck 5K
May: Somer's Summer Run 5K (in Orange Park)
June: Chad Reed Memorial 5K (in Cross City)

Each of the above supported a worthwhile charity. The organizers were sincere in trying to raise money and awareness for their particular causes while at the same time putting on a good event for the runners (and sometimes walkers) to enjoy. I recognize that nobody's perfect and that I could find faults with each of the races I was a part of. But I do have more of a beef with the last race (in Cross City).

For the LifeSouth, Climb for Cancer, and Somer's races, my time was recorded and the race results were posted on the Internet. The "Duck Run" (for lung cancer research) was conducted differently: BEFORE the race (that's important), runners were told that only the top three finishers would be timed and their results recorded. Knowing that, I set my own watch and timed myself. No problem. And now we come to the Chad Reed Memorial 5K.

Wonderful cause, which that run was for, no doubt. I hope that the well is dug soon and benefits the people that Captain Reed had wanted to help. That having been said, I feel let down by the way that those running this event seem to have "packed up and gone home" afterwards. No results have been posted, to my knowledge. If they have, no one has bothered to notify me (although at the pre-race registration time I filled out a form that gave information to them that would have enabled them to do so). Fortunately, I timed myself on my watch and know my final time. But I don't know how I did among others in my age group, which is my primary competitive interest. The website RaceSmith has a spot for this race's results should they ever post them, but so far it is blank, ten days after the event. I also noticed on their site, though, that other races seem to take place each week in which the organizers don't bother to post results, either.

I don't intend to demean the important causes underlying many of these races, but there are some basic expectations that runners have when they shell out the registration fee to enter them. Here are two: (1) they want to be timed and (2) they want the race results posted publicly, with the Internet the most convenient medium for this. That shouldn't so burdensome for someone to do, but it seems that with many of these races, times and results are never made public.

Still, it is my participation in the race that rules over everything else. I won't make too much of a deal about various shortcomings I've experienced in them other than to write about the most glaring and then "letting it go". Failing to publicly post race results IS a glaring shortcoming. So now I've written about it and am "letting it go".