This website is about running events taking place in the Seattle area. It's just a list made up by me, personally. I took up running about ten years ago and found it to be a challenging but easy activity to participate in. The health benefits are worth all of the sweat. This calendar is provided to help you find running events that might interest you. The more runners there are, the more fun it is to run.
HISTORY:
10/28/2007: For a very long time, maybe even years, I have told myself that I'm going to put together my own website listing of local runs that I personally am interested in. Frequently, I will dig deeply to locate information online for a particular run, because it's not listed on the major event calendars. Sometimes an event is listed on one calendar, but not another.
Sometimes an event is listed but there is no registration information, or no registration application form.
Then a week later, I may need to look up details of the run, and I have to go through the search once again.
How frustrating!
So here it is, finally. This is information on participatory running events (road races) in the Seattle area. The list may or may not include runs greater than 25 miles away, so Tacoma events may be excluded.
Initially, I am just "tossing" this list together, but over time, I will enhance it to be more useful. And I will attempt to keep it up-to-date, as time permits.
11/11/2007: Added form to accept suggested additions to the Calendar.
11/16/2007: Added click button to add site to Favorites.
11/17/2007: Added RSS-XML button.
11/26/2007: Because of interest in marathons, more have been added to the Calendar, even though they are outside of the immediate Seattle area. Visitors planning on coming to this area have been seeking running events that they can include as destination activities during their trips.
12/14/2007: It's frustrating to wait on run results, but some running events are still timed manually, so it takes awhile for them to record and tabulate all the participants' data, especially from the Jingle Bell 2007 Run which had RECORD attendance!
1/1/2008: Added some advertising links to try to generate a little revenue for the New Year. This is getting a little costly.
1/14/2008: Added registration information where available as tooltips (pops up when mouse hovers over registration keyword).
1/16/2008: I've decided to create another page that will include the entire state of Washington. There are many runs in Tacoma and Olympia that are not being represented, and up north also, and east. Those are just too far to go to from Seattle, but based on the searches for running events, there is plenty of interest, so I'm gonna do it.
3/20/2008: I have removed the category "Marathons outside of the Seattle Area." These will continue to be listed on the Washington Events Calendar. For the time being, I am retaining the listing of the major national marathons that we are interested in,
viz. New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.
5/1/2008: I am starting a section of "Running Tips" -- articles on the art of running, how to improve your speed, how to prevent and treat injuries,
etc. Please be patient. It will take awhile to compose the material. Of course, any suggestions you have will be most welcome.
10/21/2008: It's our anniversary! One year ago, we started this Running Events Calendar. We trust that you have found it useful and hope that you will check in regularly to learn what's new.
I will be away for a week, and may not be able to update the calendar while gone. Sorry for any inconvenience, but I'll get right back to work upon returning.
11/3/2008: I decided to build pdf's of the racing results. Some of those Excel spreadsheets are pretty large (although "large" is a relative word) and the pdf's generally are much much smaller. Both xls and pdf files will be available. Additionally, the pdf's have a much better capability of showing links to various sections; Adobe calls these "bookmarks," sort of a Table of Contents.
2/9/2009: Back in November, I made a modification to an event listing (corrected the open time of the Seattle Marathon Expo). How would you know that such a change had been made? So I decided to announce it with a line near the top of the window and highlighted it in red. Internally, I called it a "red note."
Shortly afterwards, I thought I should also announce an addition to the events calendar, so I made a red note on it. And then I began to announce every change with a red-note. This has become sort of a "What's New" section, and it might turn out to become the most helpful aid to regular readers of the calendar.
It's still under development, and the next thing I'll probably add is the ability to link directly from this "What's New" section to an event site or registration form or results download. So keep returning for visits and find out what new things I've added to "What's New."
By the way, you have probably noticed on the very top line of the window a "last updated" that shows when the page has been modified. That would save you time if you visited just a couple days ago and nothing has been altered since then.
On the same top line to the right of the timestamp is the Visitor Count. It's the "unique visitor" count tracking only new visitors on the current day. Your visit on the next day counts as another new visitor. Elsewhere on the page, in various places, is a count of Page Views. These numbers are not labeled, as they are not of any particular use to visitors. They are helpful to me; especially the second number in a pair, as it represents the current size of the database. It lets me know when it's time to perform database maintenance.
I probably will set up a mailing list for anyone interested in getting the red-note announcements by e-mail. Been thinking about that for several months but haven't made the move. Let me know if you want me to hurry up with implementing that feature, or with any other comments that you have for me.
2/9/2009: You can't help but notice the ads displayed on each page. They were meant to be noticed, of course. That's why they appear at the top of the window, in most cases. Maximum of two small ads.
I started with just the "ads by Google" several months ago. Just recently, I added links to my Amazon store that I opened a while back, tailoring it to items of specific interest to runners. I haven't yet set up the ads to automatically rotate, but it's on my "todo" list.
Unfortunately, I don't really have an easy way of filtering the Google ads; it is based on page content. So keywords that include names of cities or states often clue the ad generator to put up links for travel, insurance, home/house repair, and all kinds of things unrelated to running.
COSTS:
I sincerely hope you find it worthwhile browsing my site, and will continue to visit.
As you can imagine, it takes quite a bit of time to sniff out the events and organizing them for the calendar. Why do I do it? In my "History" paragraph, I explained that I wanted information in one place that I could depend on, and I was not getting it anywhere else. I wanted to build a "one-stop shop" where you could find everything you needed to know about running events in the area.
But what does it cost to run this site and how do I get paid?
Well, it costs surprisingly very little to build and maintain a website. This particular site costs about 12˘ a day. Of course, I also have to maintain my own computer, pay for internet access, and various other expenses, but the add-on cost for the Running Events Calendar is only pennies a day.
The time invested, however, is large. I am not paid for this. It is a community service. I am compensated emotionally by your gratitude and occasional thank you notes, but frankly, I could use some cash too, so that I can afford to keep providing the service, or so that I can afford to get some help in upkeep.
No, I am not looking for donations. I want this to be an entirely free service, for anybody and everybody. But you may have noticed that there is advertising. Everytime you visit my site, you may see some ads. Most advertisers do not pay for displaying their ads. But each time you come to my site, it increases the "impression" count, a display of the ad for your eyes to see. If a particular ad interests you, feel free to click on it. That's where some revenue starts trickling in. Sometimes the advertiser pays a fee if you simply visit their site; sometimes they pay a fee if you browse their site; sometimes they pay a fee or a commission only if you purchase something.
So that is one easy way to support my website. Don't click an ad just for clicking purposes. Click if it inspires you to find out more about the product or service. I have personally made three actual purchases from this type of advertising. In two of the instances, I had known nothing about the product beforehand, but when I saw the ad, I thought it sounded interesting, and it really was. Update 11/3/2008: Now four purchases.
What else can you do to support this site? Spread the word to all your running friends. Feel free to post links to the website on your own site, or e-mail an event listing to your friends and tell them where you got it.
I appreciate your interest and hope you keep coming back.
7/5/2009: The following is a notice that I posted the past few days in the WHAT'S NEW section. I've removed the post now but leaving the information for archiving:
NOTICE: Dear Friends. I wish I could get the run results out to you faster. I know that's what you're looking for and expect when you come to my site. I just don't have powerful enough resources to get them out any more quickly, especially when there's a huge outing like the successful Rock'n'Roll Marathon.
I'm sorry that the spreadsheets for R'n'R Marathon results are so humongous. I've considered breaking them up into smaller units, but decided that would help only a minority of readers, although it might be near impossible to download the files to some mobile devices.
The beauty is that once your download and save them on your computer, you can manipulate them to format and display in any way that you like. The spreadsheets are not locked nor protected. You can locate and select your friends' results and build your own mini-spreadsheet to print and proudly display along with your trophies, medals and finisher certificates.
For anybody who is not aware, xlsx spreadsheets are generated by MicroSoft's Excel 2007 software. You may notice that the data is stored more efficiently and cuts the size of the spreadsheet down by more than half as compared to xls spreadsheets. My guestimate is half of my readers cannot read xlsx files so I provide both versions.
The R'n'R Marathon is the first run in which I have formatted the results in landscape mode. In the preliminary results, I left it in portrait mode, but didn't like stranding the Split Times onto a separate page. In landscape mode, I was able to squeeze it all onto one length of a 8.5x11 sheet. You can of course delete columns in which you are not interested and format accordingly.
If you have any suggestions, please send them on, using the comment form at the bottom of [the calendar page], or by
e-mail. Thanks.
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