T5.5

[Curmudgeon]

Last Saturday saw the running of "T5.5":  the fifth itereation of our annual "TipToe Thru The Tulips" road rally. on which Pasha and I have been thrashing since early January.  We avoided the rains and had a successful event.  Our sincerest thanks go out to all the contestants and workers who made it so.

No one who hasn't actually done it can ever fully appreciate how much work goes into putting on a rally.  First there is all the running of roads, searching out checkpoint locations, and working out the route.  And then begins all the administrivia of formally measuring the course, publishing the general instructions, the contestant's route instructions, the checkpoint worker's instructions, checkpoint slips, and award certificates.  Then comes the actual running of the event, doing all the registration paperwork, and trying to keep everyone on course.  Then at the end comes collecting time records from the checkpoints, and working out the team's final scores.  Whew.

But then comes the really fun part:  handing out awards, schmoozing with the teams, and hearing that everyone had a good time.  That's the part that has kept us doing it for five years.  Every time we finish one, we look at each other and say "Do we really want to go thru this again?"  And then long about November we start having ideas about what we could do if ... and then in January we start it all again.

Right now we're busy enjoying the afterglow of a successful day.  Ask me about another one sometime after Labor Day!

[wahoo5]

Thanks to you and Pasha for a well run event. The backroads were great and the rain held off until lunch.

David

[whiteryder]

Any hope there might someday be a T5.6?

[draco50]

Any hope there might someday be a T5.6?

The rally program is a bit stalled-out due to lack of participation, and the Edwardseses are taking some well-deserved time off from holding it all together.  If we can be confident that we can get sufficient workers and participants to make the effort worthwhile, then I look forward to rally flourishing again.

We invest about 700 miles on our cars and 4 or 5 weekends of our time each year we put on the T5, between scouting runs, safety checks, and running pace and chase on the day of the event.  I don't know whether we're over or under the other rallymasters in that respect but the tasks that have to be completed are the same each time.  It's a big deal to make a rally happen, and it's totally worth it when folks come out and have a good time.

I hope to put on many more rallyes in the future, tulips or no tulips.