The Shakeout Podcast: The Audible Energy of the Race Announcer

Could you imagine being at a race –in complete silence? 

A big part of the race experience is the sound of the race: motivational music, the countdown to the start, and hearing the finisher’s names as they cross the line. It is a spectacle, and it should be. In most cases runners arrive at a race in the mindset that this is not just an every day training run, and all of the sights and sounds on race day feed into that feeling that this is special.

The voice you hear on race day is the voice of the race announcer, who acts as the narrator, the story-teller of the race. Without it, you’d not only miss out on important information, like if the race is running behind schedule and where the porta-potties are, you’d also lose the sense that you are doing something significant and out of the ordinary that day.

On this week’s episode of The Shakeout, we bring you the story of the race announcer and see what it’s like to be the voice behind the microphone on race day.

We would like to thank the Ontario Media Development Corporation for their contributions to this podcast.