Forums >Suggestions and Feature Requests>RA Race Calendar
OK so here’s my suggestion for an RA Race Calendar. It’s not meant to be an active.com style exhaustive list of every race that’s going on everywhere but more intended to be an add on to the forums to build on the social aspect of who’s running where. I guess I think of it as a slightly more structured version of the “Who’s running Boston this year” threads in the racing forum.
In a nutshell, each race has a thread and all the races are bundled up into one of two new forums:
Because RA would know the date of each race it would move the thread accordingly once the race has occurred.
Here’s how it would look….
At the top level, two new forums:
Once you clicked on them, each forum would look pretty much the same. A list of threads/races, giving you the key details of each event. As it’s primarily a forum, the default sort order would be last post, but users should have the ability to sort the threads by the “Date” column to allow them to see races in the order they are occurring.
Admittedly at this stage I have considered this for running only but you could set it up for different events (e.g. Triathlons) and change the icon accordingly.
Race threads would also integrate easily with “my topics”:
Races should be able to be created by anybody (like threads) and to a certain extent this is going to have to be self policing. E.g. if 2 people create a Boston 2012 thread then somebody ought to be able to delete the duplicate, either the OP or a moderator?
When you create a race it would look like this:
Now you can start to see the specific race info that would be added (date, distance, website etc..). There are probably others I have missed. At the bottom you can see the other key feature of the race thread; tracking attendees and participants and giving folks the option to state a goal and make an accompanying witty remark.
Once the race is created the thread would look like this:
RA users visiting the race thread can add their comments just like any thread, this allows for suitable discussion of post race beer, parking, monkeys etc.. In addition users can click one of the two buttons at the top to add themselves as a participant or an attendee. They would get one of the following pop up boxes and be added to the appropriate list in the thread.
There are a bunch of details that have not been thought through here:
All that said, I would love to see something like this on RA. I think in time the “Past Races” forum would become a kinda organized treasure trove of past race experiences. Want to know what parking was like at the national half last year, go back and look! More than anything it would be great to see who is racing the same events as you.
Don’t know what the rest of you think or if this is even possible.... eric?
Cheers MattJ
2017 Goals1) Run more than 231 miles2) Be ready for HM in the spring
This is the BEST feature request I've ever seen at RA. I love the idea and hope that eric adds it to his list of features.
When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
rectumdamnnearkilledem
Yes!!!
Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to
remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
~ Sarah Kay
John
+++1 !!!
I would not mind seeing this turn into a list similar to .coolrunnig/active.
John www.wickedrunningclub.com
In the beginning, the universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
--- Douglas Adams, in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"
I love the idea! Particularly, the “Past Races” part. My BFF and I have talked about doing a website like this for years. We want details the race advertisement doesn't tell you - what's the course like, wha't the t-shirt like, what's the post-race food, etc. The only changes in your idea that I think I'd want are the option to hide my participation in future races and to be able to filter by city as well as state.
My blog is JT Running DC. It's awesome. Guide to Washington DC Area Running Routes. Guide to the New York City Marathon. Guide to the Boston Marathon. Guide to Running Gear. Guide to Running Clothes.
Good Bad & The Monkey
Damn.
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
Seriously. How long did it take to write up this feature request? And how much did Trent pay you?
Runners run
Prince of Fatness
+1
Not at it at all.
This is a great idea. I'd hope that the threads from upcoming races could be moved into past races after the race date.
Marathon Maniac #991 Half Fanatic #58 Double Agent #22 It's a perfect day and I feel great!
Solid idea.
Rebuilding my aerobic base....racing next year.....nothing to see here....move along now.
Great idea! Would really let everyone know where other RAers might be - there have been several races I've been at (smaller ones that aren't highly debated in the forums) where I found out after the fact that there were several RAers there - this would allow us to find them ahead of tiem and meet up.
And wow, very detailed description of how it should be set up. nice work on that
Thanks folks
Yes, that's the way I saw it. RA would know the date of the race and so would know what forum to put it in. i.e. The day after the race the thread would "move" to the past races thread.
To me details the race advertisement doesn't tell you, year over year, was one of the big appeals too. I like the idea of filtering, it could apply to a bunch of stuff; location, as you say but also distance, date range etc. I am not sure how easy any of this is to implement though.
I did think through the "hide my participation" option though and am not sure if it is needed, at least at this early stage. Here's why:
In the way I've written this up the race is really just a forum thread with a bunch of extra info lumped on top. It is not linked to training plans for individuals so RA will not know you are running a race unless you tell it specifically in the race thread. If you don't want anyone to know you are participating then you can just subscribe or follow the race, like any other thread. I guess I came to the conclusion that "hidden" participation has no value in this implementation - maybe wrong here.
Well, seeing as you asked mikey - about 3 hours; RA has such a great, simple interface (that's why I think this would work!) that a few quick tables in MS Word with a bit of screenshot plagiarism for the graphics, means I had it all typed up and squared away while the Rangers were barfing up another game last night. Trent paid nothing... honestly! Picking the HHFMM was my attempt at 'know thine audience'. Having hung around here for a few years it seems that Monkeys never fail to keep the interest level up. Despite the complete lack of a connection to women's running undergarments or weeping toe wounds, putting the screenshots in was my attempt to avoid "This thread would be so much better with pictures"
not bad for mile 25
Wow. Nice job thinking this through and presenting it, Matt. +1 from me.
Love this suggestion!
And you can quote me as saying I was mis-quoted. Groucho Marx
Rob
Really great idea. Especially feedback on races. Can't tell you how much time I spend on the internets looking for little nuggets about "real details" for races (what the course is really like, things to look out for, level of support, etc.) and sometimes end up on random blogs or horrible one line active "reviews". RA'ers give the best feedback, and if there were a centralized place to collect and view that, would be super helpful and probably drive a lot of traffic here too.
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and roguesWe're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes