10 Things That Could Go Wrong On Race Day

We do everything within our power to ensure that race day will be perfect. We lay out our race kit the night before, including all the bars, chews, GUs, electrolyte mixes for fuel. We make sure to eat a decent dinner and breakfast that won’t rile up our stomachs at mile 5. We get a good night’s sleep and set four different alarms so we’re up at least 3 hours before the race starts. But sometimes, despite all the prep work, the race gods are against us, it’s just not our day and well…sh*t happens (sometimes literally). Whether we can control it or not, here are 10 race day mishaps to avoid (or commiserate in).

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1. Forgetting your race chip or bib

One of the worst "oh sh*t" moments is standing in your race corral only to notice you're missing something everyone is proudly sporting on their chests…your race bib (which often has the race chip attached to it too)! At this point, it's too late to go back and grab it, and you've trained too hard to quit, so you run it anyway (probably worried that everyone thinks you're a bandit). Your name won't appear in the results and there will be no official proof that you ran it. Hopefully you wore a watch in case you clocked a PR!

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2. Getting stuck in the porta potty

Your cup (or two) of morning coffee is kicking in and you either 1. Commit public indecent exposure or 2. Shuffle in line for the porta-potty minutes before the start, praying that it moves quickly. You're finally in when you hear the gun go off…

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3. Dropping your sunglasses in the porta-potty in a rush to get out (see #2)

"I heard some guy remark about it before the Chicago Marathon one year and I could only laugh," says editor-in-chief Brian Metzler. "However, it has come close to happening to me a couple of times and I'm always freaked out about anything I take into a porta potty—keys, wallet, sunglasses—because if they fall down the hole, I'm definitely not fishing them out."

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4. GPS watch doesn't kick in until mile 2

At large races, this can be a potential problem. Everyone is turning on and setting up their watches 5 minutes before the race. Right when you think you're all set, you notice your watch isn't finding the satellites—or amid all the excitement, you forgot to press start.

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5. Forgetting to wear race shorts underneath your sweats

"This happened to a friend of mine," says editor-in-chief Brian Metzler. "We were at the start of a cool morning race and he's about to drop his pre-race sweats when he realizes he doesn't have any running shorts on. He wound up cutting his sweats into shorts. He looked like a dork with cut-off sweats, but he ran OK."

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6. The buses forget to show up

Recently at the Revel Rockies Half Marathon in Morrison, Colo., 1,700 runners were left waiting in the parking lot because the buses shuttling participants to the start line forgot to show up. Only enough buses to transport 900 marathoners and 100 half marathoners to the start line were available. It's one thing for a race to be cancelled for everybody, but getting left behind is truly unfortunate.

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7. Luggage gets lost traveling to a race

Another reason to carry on your bag during a run-cation, so you have exactly what you need for race day. Sure, you can buy new running clothes and shoes, but breaking in new shoes on race day is not ideal nor is it particularly pleasant. Hello blisters!

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8. Getting lost yourself

Although not very common during road races, trail and ultrarunners on courses with little to no marking have accidentally ran several miles in the wrong direction. Even elite ultrarunner Hal Koerner admits to getting lost more than just a few times, "I've had so many races where I'm running down the trail fast in first place, thinking 'Oh my god, I'm killing this race.' Only to find out miles later that I'm not even on the right course!"

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9. Earphones blow out

If you're someone that must have music while you run, then this is the worst thing that could happen to you during a race. It throws off your groove and suddenly 13.1 or 26.2 miles is looking a lot longer than it usually does.

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10. Pooping your pants

You know those signs that read, "It's OK, you can poop" or "Don't poop!" Well, it can really happen and sometimes you really just can't hold it. Embrace it. Photo: Bestracesigns.wordpress.com

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