My First Time Race Directing - Pegasus Ultra Running The VOGUM and Cosmeston Lakes parkrun

To help address the challenge of equalising the number of men and women in ultra running then the awesome Pegasus Ultra Running are particularly forward thinking. Pegasus want to have a female race director at each of their ultras this year, and so have invited a different female ultra runner to race direct each of their races. I had the honour of race directing the VOGUM. This involved a personal phone call to each of the runners before the race, a super early morning to make sure everything was ready for runners to arrive from 5am, the race briefing and then the best bit which was cheering every runner in over the line. Pegasus don't have cut offs at their races, they really want you to succeed so if you can do it, then they will help you to do it.

After setting ~200 runners off on the beach then we headed to Penarth to set up the finish area. On my way there was time to get in a quick parkrun so I headed to Cosmeston Lakes parkrun which was less than 2 miles from the finish! It was an absolutely stunning course and the icing on the cake was seeing some wonderful running friends there too. There was time for a short parkfaff before setting up the finish and getting ready to hang a well deserved medal around the neck of the first finisher. Everyone who took on those 40 miles had a story to tell and we welcomed runners in for the next 11 hours until we packed up the kit at around midnight after the final runners and the tails had come over that line.

It was great to get to see another of South Wales' beautiful parkruns and an absolute honour to meet the very lovely James and Lyn on the team, as well as the rest of the volunteers. parkrunworld never ceases to amaze me in terms of the places it takes us and the awesome people we get to meet along the way.

What an incredible, magical, and very tiring day! This video tells the story of the day but my focus was very much on race directing rather than video production. Hopefully it gives a good flavour of what was involved.

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Happy running,

Nicola :)

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