Picking up Our Running Kits for the Greater Mississauga Spring Marathon, 2016

We picked up our running kits a day prior to the Mississauga Marathon

Today was a pretty interesting day for us. It was our first experience with a city wide running event.


We were helping out with the Joy Beyond Vision Community charitable organization composed of vision impaired people who would be taking part in the Mississauga Marathon / running event on Saturday. April 30.


We met up with Pastor Philip and Clement and drove to an arena to pick up the running kit for all the runners the day before the run. My husband and I did part in the Terry Fox Run for a couple of years when our children were young.

Since we were not involved in the organization of the run, we knew very little about the workings behind the scenes of organizing a city wide fundraising marathon event.

I thought we would just park our car outside the arena, and went in to pick up the kits and then head home. It would not take too long, right?

Wrong!

We were in the arena for over an hour because there were a lot to see!

Before we could reach the area to pick up everything we needed for tomorrow's run, we had to walk through a maze of sponsors and vendors winding down the path leading to our destination.

We enjoyed the different samples of protein bars offered at the booths

A number of companies were there with  booths set up, enthusiastically promoting their products and giving out free brochures and samples. We had fun looking at all the displays, trying samples of different energy bars.

The behind the scene organization was awesome!  Everything was arranged in order and the flow and traffic was very smooth; everyone got through the process with little waiting time.

Friendly staff manning the merchants\ booths

These were the stations in sequence to help runners to pick up their running kit efficiently:

1.  Business and Vendors' Booths - They were set up at the entrance to the lower level of the arena.      Everyone entering the ares must go by these booths.

Participants pick up their Bib number from the main desk 

2.  Bib Number Pick Up Station - We picked up the forms for our group, double checked each name on our list with the Bib number and picked up the safety pins to attach the bib.

Runners' Bib numbers were scanned by machines set up by Sport Stats.

3.  Scanning Station - We scanned each one of the Bib with the runner's number on it on a scanner so that we would get a report about our run.

The T- shirts were laid out according to gender and size on the tables. 

4.  T-Shirts Pick Up Station - T shirts were neatly displayed on a row of long tables with size and categories clearly marked on the wall above the tables. Though we are not running the marathon tomorrow, this would be our first T shirt for our run

5. The Goodies Station - A goodie bag with free gifts and samples were handed out to each registered participants.

The whole experience was quite pleasant and efficient. The only problem we encountered was a couple of our runners name did not have registered number assigned to them.

Pastor Philip had to spend some time finding out the reason and locating their number so that they could be in the computer system.

After a few tries, the Greater Toronto Spring Marathon organizer was able to finally located the names and assigned each a number.  Mission accomplished! We were happy and look forward to the run tomorrow!!!

R.T.
Mississauga
Ontario