My entry into the race directing world happened in a rather random way more than a decade ago—2012ish. My favorite partner in crime on the DeSoto Trail PTO board, Amy O’Kelley, and I declared that carnival hosting wasn’t our thing and decided to start a 5K as the school’s new annual community event.

You can imagine how a lot of parents felt about that, but we were the worker bees, which meant we got to make the call on what work was getting done. Amy recruited a mom who had race directing experience to head up our committee of eight parents the first year, and we all just dove into the new job. (As you know, elementary school parents have navigated monumental developmental years; they’re used to doing what they’ve never done before. It didn’t even seem weird to be confident we could pull it off.)

We met over beer and pizza at Momo’s every couple of weeks to check in with the whole team, review our to-do list, and set priorities for the coming weeks. And despite all that lack of experience, our team recruited sponsors, purchased insurance, arranged for a police presence, had Bill McGuire certify a course, rented GWTC race equipment, and worked with Peg Griffin to learn how to do registration.

We designed shirts, recruited race day volunteers, solicited food donations, and promoted the race. We felt so inspired, we added a silent auction component, found a snow cone guy to come to race day, and had firefighters bring out their truck for the kids to explore.

I don’t even remember many details from that year’s race day, but it went well enough that we kept doing it for several years— including two years after our kids weren’t even at DeSoto anymore! People came and went from the committee over the years, but we always had a great time working together to make our school’s race a success.

Of course, there were a few sleepless nights here and there, but the camaraderie of the team and the excitement of marking the course the night before and arriving before the sun came up on race day was addictive. And seeing fellow parents, kids, and the run community have a great race was immensely rewarding.

It was so fun and rewarding that many years later, I agreed to take on directing the Pine Run 20K with Carter (new territory with a long trail race) and serve as VP on the Board—which, as I’ve already said, meant I got to hang with the rock stars (and they’re a little intimidating). You know the entire point of this story, right? Take advantage of the chance to serve your Club. Not just to give back to a Club that does soooo much for the run community—but to have fun. To meet cool people. To apply your talents in a different way.

In November, we’ll have board elections, and we’ll need new chairs, new ideas, inspired leaders, and worker bees in many different roles throughout the Club. Be one of them. Tell me what you’re good at, and I’ll find a team for you to work with to have fun doing it. Don’t be modest. Don’t let nervousness around the veterans or the fear of something new hold you back. Don’t tell me you’re too busy because we always find a way to fit it all in. This is the good stuff, y’all, and I want to see you shine!