Running a First-Class Race

Mary Anderson remembers the old days when running races were timed with stop watches, and competitors filled out paper entry forms and didn’t know the color of the complimentary t-shirts until they finished the race.

Today, her company — Anderson Race Management, based in Eagan, Minnesota—has brought the racing experience into the digital age, supplying state-of-the-art equipment and support for organizations conducting triathlons and running, walking, biking, and sometimes cross-country ski races throughout the upper Midwest.

Ever since she was a recreational long-distance runner at Gustavus-Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, Anderson has had a zest for racing. She served on the board of the Twin Cities Marathon for 12 years and was its president in 2000-2001. “I was working at Dayton’s department store at the time,” she recalls. “A number of Dayton’s employees were on the marathon board.” She has also served as president of the running organization now called Run Minnesota and served on numerous boards and non-profit committees.

In 2002, she joined Lifetime Fitness and helped with a wide variety of fun runs, triathlons, and trail runs that the company sponsored.

Working with these different races revealed a need for a single source for all the services and equipment needed for a successful event. “I saw the need,” Anderson remembers. “The race experience was fun, and I thought I’d like to do this full-time. I could take my experience volunteering on these different committees to another level by providing a turn-key service and bringing everything to a race that a sponsor might need.”

That’s exactly what Anderson Race Management does. The company provides support in four key areas: Race management, timing, promotion, and rentals. It’s a full-service approach, including everything from logistics, obtaining permits, securing vendors, providing medical support, the latest in chip timing, internet and social media promotion, and such necessities as tables and chairs, inflatable finish arches, sound systems, generators, signs and mile markers, even bathroom and garbage services. The company uses new tools like ChronoTrack Live and Race Roster—powerful race paperless registration and scoring platforms that eliminate manual data entry and errors. Racers have access to real-time results, photos, and videos via the web and mobile devices. Anderson markets events through e-mail communications, e-calendar listings, and social media. It maintains up to 50 internet hot spots at race sites.

“They do a great job partnering with a non-profit,” says Chris Evans, president of the Colon Cancer Coalition in the Twin Cities. “Mary understands our mission and proactively reaches out with best practices, vendor recommendations, and opportunities for us to partner with others. She was instrumental in helping us find the right location for our event, which resulted in a record number of participants. They provide us with the flexibility to choose the services we need. They even helped us find a safety pin provider that was 75 percent cheaper than what we were using!”

It wasn’t always this way.

Mary organized her first race in her hometown of Medalia for the local hospice in honor of her father, who was dying of prostate cancer. She started the race management business in 1996 and left the corporate world in 2007. This was the start of an economic downturn; the economic crash of 2008-2009, and the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 loomed. “Actually, the economic crisis produced some opportunities for us,” she remembers. “When many non-profits had government funding sources cut, they began using running and walking events to raise money.” COVID was far worse. “We had eight events canceled in a single day,” Mary remembers. “I had to lay off people. It was a question of spending a penny or saving a penny. It was a disaster. I never cried so hard in my life.”

At events that went ahead as scheduled, the pandemic’s impact was significant. One of Mary’s favorite running events was limited to 200 competitors who had to race six feet apart in small groups of 25.

On the brighter side, the state of South Dakota stayed open during the pandemic, and that area continues to be a major market for races and her company’s services. Since COVID, the recovery in the race market has been solid. “Events are going gangbusters now,” Mary says. She and her staff are very busy with up to 150-200 events each year, the majority in the March to November time frame. There are times when the company provides services for as many as 15 events in a single weekend.

To support that level of demand, Anderson Race Management maintains a small team of key employees — including an operations director, social media manager, and warehouse staffers — who handle everything from planning and scheduling to marketing, equipment, and transportation. In addition, the company hires “weekend warriors” – volunteers who staff the events and assist with registration, water stations, course monitoring, and more. “These are folks who want to spend a weekend here and there helping us during the season,” Mary says.

Mary’s staff has been the key to success. “Surround yourself with good people and treat everybody as a member of the team—all the way to the folks picking up the garbage and the bathrooms,” she said.

Lisa Jacobson who works with the St. Paul Winter Festival had this to say about the company:

“I have worked for decades with Twin Cities non-profits and have hired Anderson Race Management for every run I have coordinated. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t consider producing a run event without them. This team delivers every time.”

So, while runners focus on their times, their pace, how they feel, and that next cup of water, Anderson Race Management is busy supplying the necessary infrastructure that makes race day successful for everybody.

As the company states on its website, “We’re here to ensure an exceptional experience from start to finish.”