When race directors team up

Aligning with like-minded people has been pivotal in the success of Maritime Race Weekend. Over the last four years, I have developed fantastic relationships with amazing race directors and industry professionals across North America. There are a number of local race directors who I rely on for advice and are my best sounding boards. Regardless if an event has 200 participants or 10,000, we face a number of similar challenges and obstacles.

Earlier this year, four of the largest marathon race directors in Nova Scotia decided to collaborate and I am fortunate to be part of this group. The synergy is like no other I’ve experienced before. We cross promote, share best practices, brainstorm, exchange ideas and volunteer at each other’s events.

We strive to keep interest and participation in our road races growing, which was especially challenging in a year where many races struggled with dwindling registrations. We are all not-for-profit road races and our priority is not profit margins or one-upping each other, it’s offering peer support. By working together, we are able to raise the bar and deliver quality races that runners expect and deserve.

Next year will be exciting for runners in Nova Scotia. Three Nova Scotian marathons (Johnny Miles, Maritime Race Weekend and Valley Harvest) have teamed-up to provide a new series called Super Nova Challenge. Runners expected an extra medal for running the new race series, but we surprised them with a chance to win a trip for two to Runaway Bay in Jamaica and the first 500 registrations in the triple challenge receive an invitation to a fourth race that’s free.

Immediately upon announcing the exciting new idea, we received an enormous amount of positive feedback from runners that resulted in a spike in all of our race registrations. This is proof, that a threefold cord is stronger than one strand.