Shut Out In The Registration Line

Have you ever walked up to register for a race with money in hand - ready to part with your discretionary income - and turn around and walk away?

Probably not.  And before tonight, I don't think I had either.

Five years ago, I did a 5K race on a Friday evening in Deussen Park, which is directly next to the southernmost part of Lake Houston.

It was called the Dusk Dash at Deussen.

I believe that a second race was held in 2014 and then it went dormant.

About a month ago, I received an e-mail that they were going to be holding it this year and it was going to be on Friday, June 1 in the same location.

I didn't sign up early because I have to work on Friday and I didn't know how long my work calls would go.

I had it planned out, however, to leave after the last call was over at 4 p.m. and have plenty of time, even with a little traffic, to register and be there for the start of the race at 6 p.m.

After the race, I would return my rental car at IAH for the week, walk to the EcoPark lot and get my car and then drive home.

I pulled into the parking lot at about 5:05 p.m. and started to walk up.

Having done it five years ago, I didn't expect all of the bells and whistles.

In fact, I was fully expecting to pay $35 - primarily as a donation to the Boy Scouts from Troop 474 and girls from Venture Crew Troop 665 - for nothing more than a bib and maybe a T-shirt and to run/race 3.1 miles in 97 degrees.

I saw a start and finish line inflatable and saw that it was from Kim Bachmeier's FTR Race Management in Galveston County.

I didn't see Kim immediately - or at all - so in hindsight they might have just been renting her inflatable.

There was a tent that looked like where packet pickup and registration activities might be going on.

Even though I saw that FTR was "there", I didn't see any timing mats.  Therefore, as I expected, we'd do manual timing.  I've lots of races that way.

As I approached the tent, I saw a sign for "packet pickup" and nothing for registration.

I had e-mailed to confirm that race day was $35 - and not a surprise of $40.  ($40 would be past my 5K price limit.)

So there was a table close to the finish line where two young ladies had papers with them.  I thought that maybe they were just taking names down, etc., but when I approached and asked, they pointed back to the tent that I was.

There were two young ladies and an adult with a child in her left hand.

Two young boys were getting bib numbers to either run the 1-mile race or the 5K.  Couldn't decipher which.

The adult was putting their names in a laptop computer and even asked the second young man what number he wanted.

As they got done with both of them, I asked, "Is there any type of form to fill out?"

I'm not sure if "No" was said, but the adult said, "If you have a phone, you can go there and register or I can ...."

She didn't try to find somebody to hold the young person in her left arm and possibly say, "Can you hold him while I try to get this gentleman registered?"

But by the time she said, "I can ...," it was a turn-off.  I didn't listen to anything else and made a decision to leave.

I had correct change even.  A $20 bill, two $5 bills and five $1 bills.

I saw John Thames with Spring Action Photos and I tried not to engage too much because I really didn't want to go into any details about why I was leaving.

Could I have gone and registered on my phone?  Yes.

It was PayPal setup with a credit card, but I didn't know if I would have had to pay an additional fee.

And then I would have been directed to fill out a Google form, which I'm assuming was setup to share to her computer.

As I drove towards George Bush Intercontinental Airport, I realized that the two young ladies at the table by the finish line were going to do manual timing, which was perfectly cool.

The numbers weren't going to be that big.

And I completely expected like Run The Woodlands 5K to keep my time manually.

And by registering online, there was an asterisk on the Register button which pointed immediately below to their legal release.

Perhaps if the adult had started with that, I might have been more amenable to the idea.

The bottom line was:  I didn't need to run the race - as I'm running the Heights Fun Run 10K in the morning, but I wanted to.

However, I know a lot of other races that - if race day registration is offered - they will figure out how to receive your money every way possible short of bitcoins.