If the Shoe Fits - Buy It

As we trot into October, cooler weather may entice new or inexperienced joggers to hit the trails. Thus, I thought it would be beneficial to highlight the most important part of any runner’s arsenal: good quality running shoes. Skimp on shoes and you could develop injuries such as blisters, abrasions, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, or knee and foot pain that will leave you debilitated, disheartened, and defeated on the side of the road. Beyond that, the right pair of trainers can improve endurance and efficiency, so it pays to do your homework and invest in a good pair.

Leaderboard

We're excited to announce a new feature to our growing arsenal of tools.  This will interest any of you that like to see how well you perform against other athletes.  The new feature is a Leaderboard that we're introducing on a monthly basis based on geographic areas.  For any area that we operate in, we will have a monthly leaderboard based on the times of all Athlete Guild timed races.  As a participant, there is nothing for you to do to participate except to run a race that we are involved with.  Your times will automatically be incorporated into the mont

Ranking Race Directors

I've been thinking a lot lately about race directors that we have worked with over the years.  It numbers in the many hundreds and possibly thousand with all of the different type of events that we timing, manage, and support.  It gives us a unique perspective on the personalities of race directors.  Some are amazing to work with while others we're glad to be done with.  It would be impossible to actually rank the race directors because it is such a subjective criteria but I know that I have my personal top 5 and bottom 5 race directors.  Those in the top ar

Events and Results

As a long-time runner, I was always frustrated by the number of locations that I would have to search to find events and then results.  I always wanted a single place that I could go to find all of the upcoming events in an area and then afterwards to be able to get the results of the race.  That frustration led me to create Athlete Guild.  Originally, the idea was to create a website with postings of events and results.  As a software engineer, I knew that I could create something that would work and be beneficial to runners.  I figured that if I was frustrated the

Finisher Award

There has been a recent trend we have been watching where races of shorter distances are giving finisher medals to participants.  This has been the case for a long time with longer distances such as half marathons and over but it is a fairly recent phenomenom with distances such as a 10K or even a 5K.  What is really behind this movement?

State of the Industry

Every year, we are treated to various State of the xx; union, industry, state. etc.  Since everyone else is doing it, I decided to produce my own.  Hopefully you will find this useful and possibly enlightening.

I have been producing and timing events since the late 90s and a have seen a lot of changes.  It has been a fascinating transformation over the years and we have certainly come a long way.  So where are we today in the road race industry?  What is constant, what is new, and what is going away?

Reflections and goals

As we close out 2016, it is time to make plans for the coming year.  I always like to take this time to look over the past year and review the accomplishments, successes, as well as mistakes and failures.  I do this in order to set goals for the coming year.  I’ve always been a firm believer in setting both realistic and far-reaching goals to help guide me.  I do this both professionally and personally.  It doesn’t mean that we always achieve the goals, but success is defined by the journey and not necessarily the destination.

Achieving the dream

Our business is coming up on its 7 year anniversary at the end of December.  This was a dream that I had going back to the first few races over 16 years ago.  The goal was to build a business that would provide services to non-profits and help them raise much needed funds through racing.  We have helped a lot of non-profits during that time.  Many non-profits struggle every day just to keep their doors open.  When I started this business, the idea was to provide services at a very competitive rate that would allow them to maximize their revenue.  It has cost us

What is certification

One of the most often questions we get from race directors and participants alike regards certification of routes used in particular races.  Race directors want to know about getting a course certified while participants want to know if it is.  For those not familiar with this concept, I thought that I would briefly describe the process.

Cheating in the sport

I was timing a cross-country meet the other day and was witness to a Rosie.  You may remember Rosie Ruiz in the 1980 Boston marathon when it was determined that she actually cut the course.  In this particular case, there was middle school girl who jumped in the race a few hundred yards from the finish and placed in the top 25.  The reason I caught it was because she was dumb enough to get close to our finish line three minutes before the first girl.  She then I assume proceeded to an area where she could get away with cheating.  Unfortunately, I didn't actually