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gremlin
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #20 on Sept 22, 2009, 3:16pm »
The race committee needs to have a come-to-Decker meeting with the Statesman. First, they print that it will be a 20K instead of a half marathon. Still in denial despite printing a correction after the first gaff, today's column about half marathons completely ignores Decker as a local half marathon. What's up with that?
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #21 on Sept 22, 2009, 3:36pm »
this from a guy who's received complimentary entry for the last several years. Nice.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #22 on Sept 28, 2009, 3:56pm »
Heads up! Early bird registration ends after Sept 30th. See you out there.

P.S. I've used the Kimbia solution a few times now, and despite its flaws, I like Signmeup.com better.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #23 on Nov 3, 2009, 7:05pm »

Sept 4, 2009, 3:39pm, alexa wrote:
Thanks jg3, I see " more details soon" I guess that's where they may tell you what the cutoff time may be after one loop. I have to wait on this, too steep of an entry to get pulled after one loop, but 5hrs. is good, anything less is too tight, especially if the cutoff for one loop is 2:15.

here's the latest off the ARC site :

Decker Race Information:

Double Decker Start: 7:00AM

Half Marathon Start: 8:00AM

Course closed: Noon

More Details coming soon



Quoting myself here.

So when I originally copied this off the ARC site it was 5 hrs for the race, now it's 4.5 hours , since the Double starts at 7:30 & the course closes at noon.It changed somewhere between Sept 4th when I copied this & now when I checked again.

Not that I have any business doing this, but it would seem w/ the strict time limit & the much higher % of entry fee increase over last year, it would discourage many folks from attempting this monster.

aa
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #24 on Nov 3, 2009, 7:58pm »
alexa, when David and I were working on it, we couldn't figure it any other way than 7:30 for the full and 8:00 for the half. Otherwise you get the first doubler coming in right on top of the 5K that starts after the half. This way there might be some overlap but generally only the fastest doubler coinciding with the slowest 5K'ers and they can negotiate okay.

About the price...I guess you can consider this a "boutique" race. Which is why I don't buy my clothes at boutiques. :)
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #25 on Nov 3, 2009, 8:48pm »
Does the county want us off the roads by 12:00 , is that why they can't have a 5 hr. limit to put the finishing time at 12:30 ?

Those are pretty wide open roads out there, even if the fastest Marathoners would come on top of the 5K'ers there's still plenty of running room. How long do the two races actually have to share the same course ?

About the price , I'm not saying it's expensive, I thought the big increase in price was also maybe to cover extra time for the roads to be open amongst other costs.

Just wondering is all.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #26 on Nov 4, 2009, 7:11am »

Nov 3, 2009, 8:48pm, alexa wrote:
Does the county want us off the roads by 12:00 , is that why they can't have a 5 hr. limit to put the finishing time at 12:30 ?

Those are pretty wide open roads out there, even if the fastest Marathoners would come on top of the 5K'ers there's still plenty of running room. How long do the two races actually have to share the same course ?

About the price , I'm not saying it's expensive, I thought the big increase in price was also maybe to cover extra time for the roads to be open amongst other costs.

Just wondering is all.


Traditionally, Decker has had a 4 hour cut off for the single loop. Not enough people run the double to justify keeping the course open longer for that event. Portions of the course are kept open longer for the doublers when they would have been closed before, but keeping everything open longer is hard financially.

The pinch point for the course overlap is not the highways but the finish area. The roads on the grounds are narrower. You can't have a 2:40 marathoner running into a wall of walkers for the 5K.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #27 on Nov 4, 2009, 9:07am »
Alex, the County and TxDOT want the roads open by noon. It looks like it is all out in the country on abandoned roads, but a ton of people go to the park, even in the winter. There are churches and a Hindu Temple along the route. There are businesses. You'd be surprised. I sure was, and I've probably done the loop around Decker Lake, on foot, on bike or in my truck more times than anyone I know.
The "expert" on this is of course Danny, the former Travis County Sheriff who stills leads a group of Sheriff personnel for traffic control. He knows every nook and cranny, every neighbor, every business. Danny says we have to be out of there and done by noon.

Be nice if the silent RD would chime in.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #28 on Nov 4, 2009, 10:08am »
I do understand about the county wanting the roads opened I figured that was the case.

To keep this friendly & playful debate going though , this being a novelty type of marathon , I still can't see the problem w/ the faster runners having to go around some folks doing the 5K. Maybe this being a low key , small marathon, this is not the marathon for the hardcore , serious , no holds barred kinda runners & they should choose another .Afterall it called the Decker Challenge ;)

I did two marathons this year where the RD stated that the course would be open to the public & they would have to share the course with the public,bikes, etc. Both were BQ certified & both had a few areas where I had to duck in & out of congestion a few times.Both were low key novelty type marathons, but were both doable w/ the congestion & seemed to not bother the 2:37 marathoner on New Years Day.

There were 98 finishers in the 5k last December. Now I don't know if there were a lot of " fun runners " that didn't wear chips , but w/ the number of Marathoners that were in the 3:03 to 3:05 range it doesn't seem like it would be that congested ? But then again I probably look at it differently than they do.

Again, this is just a friendly conversation & debates about how to maybe make a fine event even have more of a mass appeal.

Thanks for all the input, information & viewpoints on this topic. Yeah, where's the RD & other folks !

aa
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #29 on Nov 4, 2009, 12:41pm »
We have put in a request with the sheriffs department to see if we can keep the course open a little longer. We are still waiting to see what they say:-D.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #30 on Nov 4, 2009, 12:58pm »
Alex - what happens when you want a race to do something different? Get involved. That was me, 6 years ago. I was on the race committee (first thing to do). They did 99% right, and 1% I thought could be better or just different. Dawn pushed me to be RD, so I did.

The last few years were my decisions, along with lots of input from all the other people involved.

So, if you really wanna see it change, go change it.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #31 on Nov 4, 2009, 1:35pm »
Wow, Sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone, just wanted to get a few questions answered & a little debate, point-counterpoint thingy going to shake the cobwebs off around here.

Thanks ARC Sec. for looking in to at least trying for the extension on the roads, maybe you'll hit 'em on a good day.

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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #32 on Nov 4, 2009, 2:12pm »
alexa,

The conversation can go on forever, with lots of "why" questions. It just comes down to the judgment of the people working on the race with the RD being where the buck stops.

To answer your last questions, the reason we didn't treat it like a novelty race on a trail surface open to the public with kids and bikes and stuff is that we wanted to provide a real road marathon experience with the best quality we were capable of. It still involved two loops, but other than that, the only reason it is a novelty marathon is because it does not have many participants. Like M2M, all the rest of the road marathon experience is there.

As for 5K folks, there are somewhere in the range of 250 who participate each year, and you are right that most are untimed.

When we planned it out, it was with some experience of having worked on each aspect of the race so that, off the top of our heads, we could come up with the expected numbers who would run what pace on which course. We just didn't want Jim Cleary to face 5 people walking abreast when he was approaching the turnaround after the first loop. Remember, that last bit is almost a single lane because we had it coned so that the doublers could head back out on pavement. Having run part of a marathon wading through half marathoners, that just seemed like something to avoid if we could.

You could also ask, why the single start and finish for each race that makes such collisions a challenge. The biggest factor is cost followed closely by staffing. Having a single start/finish line staffed by a single group of folks is a huge savings of time and money.

There are other ways to handle every bit of this race and lots of good, legitimate questions you could ask about why anything is or was done. The difference between an ARC race and any other race is that here you don't just have to be a voice in the wind, subject to whatever the race organizers do and say, unless that is what you want to be. Like in Ratatouli where "anyone can cook," at ARC events, anyone can be an organizer. You actually can make a difference. I know you have volunteered puh-lenty (never forget that hard-core course monitor duty in the freezing cold and wind and rain and snow and bears...) and know whereof you speak, but there only so many "why" questions you can ask before you find yourself pretty far down the rabbit trail with no end in sight.

We don't know what the current race committee is doing or thinking because we're not working on it, but I am sure they are working hard and doing their best and they have our full support.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #33 on Nov 4, 2009, 2:26pm »
g & d , check you inboxes , I sent you a candygram :)
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #34 on Nov 4, 2009, 3:24pm »
thanks for the nice PM, Mr. Alexa. Wasn't trying to be cranky, just saying what I mean. If ya want it different, you either get somebody to do it, do it yourself or live with it. I like to fix things myself... :)

Or at least, as far as running events go, I USED TO. :)
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #35 on Nov 4, 2009, 4:44pm »
Just had to say one more thing, cause I can't help it. Comparisons to Frank's noble race are really just not accurate.
The Frankenthon, a well organized event, was 150 people, on a park trail open to the public, with 3 loops. It was one event.
Decker is 5 races, on a partially closed rural Texas highways and county roads, with a total of all race participants nearing 2000 people.
I was comparing the complexity of organizing Decker vs. the Frankenthon in my mind, then got really humbled - imagine organizing the Austin Marathon. 26.2 miles of city streets. 15000 people. Hundreds of volunteers. Now, it is 3 events (5K, Half and Full Marathon). Holy mackerel.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #36 on Nov 5, 2009, 9:26am »
Course will now be open till 1:00pm! You wanted it and you got it ;D Thanks for speaking up!
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #37 on Nov 5, 2009, 9:49am »
that's awesome, a race for runners, by runners. Nice job ARC!
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #38 on Nov 5, 2009, 1:45pm »
jolly good job !
thanks.
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Re: Decker Registration is Open!
« Reply #39 on Nov 19, 2009, 10:16am »
ok, so barring weather like we had in S.A. I'm in for the Triple Decker, but will wait for at least a 5 day forecast.
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