07/12/2026
It’s about the money, or is it?
It’s truth time in Buck Fifty land. I had a moment this week while preparing for our 5K and Half Marathon: was the work worth it? So many hours go into planning and preparing for the Running For Their Lives Race. I had to wonder. We still have a few bills to pay from yesterday’s race, but I’ll guess we’ll profit right around $4,000. If I think about taking the time for race planning, marketing, and ex*****on during race week, I’d like to think that if I invested that time into finding sponsors for The Buck Fifty, I could land more than $4,000.
But here’s the story that needs to be shared because what doesn’t show up in the numbers is the impact we can make in other ways when we come together as a team, “over”! We’ll get to the “over” part later, but it’s clear to me when I look at the results that it’s definitely worth it. Good planning starts months or even years ahead for a race. The distance and location of the race are first, and once that is decided, we need to start filling in the pieces.
Greg Manson, our Racecourse Supervisor, and I pretty much work in lockstep gathering supplies from a very long list of items we’ll need. Over 10 years at The Buck Fifty, we’ve acquired a lot of gear, including signage, tents, sound equipment, flags, The Cozy Wagon stage, and computers. We even built our own timing equipment with the Help of William Presson, our Director of Development and IT Strategy. These items are investments for us, but they save us money over time since we don’t have to rent them each year. I have also learned that having our own gear is fantastic because we have the ability to utilize it on our schedules. Greg and Williams are key members of the team!
Last night, I came home and thanked my Son, Payne, for helping out during the race. Payne said, “The nice thing about having The Buck Fifty in your house is you always have unlimited volunteer hours to collect.” He doesn’t even need any hours as far as I know, but he has found the joy in helping others. Payne was a solid assistant to my Wife Rachel, who handles the Check-In process and really sets my mind at ease. Rachel and Payne were then the face of the race, passing out race medals and awards at the finish line. It’s such a blessing to have Rachel on my team! She runs a solid show before the race, issuing our runners’ race bibs and shirts. I saw several runners yesterday wearing their 2025 Run For Their Lives race day shirt, so it’s just special to see the yearly support. William and I had a great moment together yesterday right before the start of the half marathon, where he had just a huge smile seeing 78 runners toe the line. He said, “Isn’t it wonderful to see such great support for our events?” People showing up and investing their time and money in your dreams is a powerful example of teamwork.
A good friend of mine, Lance Mikus took time off from work on Friday to help Greg and I set up the start/finish line and racecourse. As with most things, I am always overly optimistic about how long it will take to get things done. Lance and I planned to camp out overnight on Friday at the start/finish line to keep an eye on things. I told him on Thursday we should be done on Friday just after lunch so we could go home and get our camping gear. He said that was great, as it took some stress off his planning for the weekend. We started Friday morning meeting at my house at 8:00 am to hook up the Cozy Wagon and Buck Fifty trailer. We then had to stop at our first storage location on Western Avenue, and then our second stop was at the main storage unit off Water Street. Greg met us there, and we loaded more items onto the trailers and trucks we had. It will be so nice when we can build our new 3,200 sf warehouse and have everything in one location.
The full circle part of Lance and my camping plans was that I never left Scioto Trails until ten minutes after 6:00 that evening. Lance got out a little earlier and was able to return to the site about 8, just in time to hold down the fort as that crazy rainstorm blew through. I was driving back from my house and almost forgot to pick up the awards before returning to the site. The roadways had several areas starting to flood, and I just kept thinking I have to get back there to help Lance. We ended up having a great night hanging out in the valley and slept on cots under The Buck Fifty Tents. William woke us up about 5:40 am as he came in onsite driving down from Circleville to get race day started. I know he was so excited and it helped get my blood pumping too.
The rest of our volunteer crew started to arrive as they prepared shirts, bibs, and dried things off from the rain. Then our Checkpoint Volunteers rolled in, and man, did they do a wonderful job. Shannon, Amanda, Wes, Amber, Carly, David, and Terrell came to answer the call. The folks who volunteer their time to help others are the true gems or our society. Imagine where we could be as a civilization if everyone just gave 5-6 hours a month. It’s so refreshing to me, and I’m forever grateful to folks like this!!! As we issued radios to each of these folks, Terrell came up with the question/statement that we all had to say “over” after all our communications. Lol… I love radio chatter! It’s short, sweet, and keeps everyone on the same page very quickly. It’s amazing how these short messages can help us all visualize what’s happening during the race. Checkpoints opening, runners coming through, how is traffic going, and even once there was a notation of some cyclists riding through. I just love all the cool moments you encounter behind the scenes as we enjoy everyone’s company.
One of those volunteers who’s always quietly with us is Dan Haller. This stellar human has been helping us with events since he was in high school. Working with us at the Rally, stayed out with us all night working The Buck Fifty, helping at The Little Buck, and again with us these past two years during the RFTL event. He has a strong sense of calm, the ability to decide what needs to be done next, and he jumps in to help without being told. As we prepared for race weekend, I knew we had 4 checkpoints, a spotter station at the finish, all of which needed tents. That’s a total of 5, but I have also learned that sometimes things break, don’t work, or you just have a need for more than what was planned for. It’s hard to spot runners’ race bibs with binoculars in a rainstorm, so we used the extra tent we brought to set up at the finish line in the driving rain. As I grabbed the tent, my Man Dan jumped off the Cozy Wagon and chipped in to help set this tent up in the rain. I think it’s a true gift that you see something that needs done, and you just do it without hesitation. I’m sure his parents taught him this, and I always feel a little more at ease knowing Dan is with us!
As we came down to the final month of marketing about all things Buck Fifty with the RFTL, BF Registrations, Buck Ten event in September (must sign up by August 1st), and trying to raise money to build our new warehouse through brick sales, I asked William to help in on our social media work. I fear sometimes my personal messages get stale, so having another personality in the mix helps keep things fresh. He did an excellent job in broadcasting these messages over the past month and even portrayed a beautiful debut of our brick sales. Come see the brick, touch it, feel it, buy one at the race.
One of my favorite Buck Fifty Team Captains, Christine Mauk, stopped by to talk at the finish line. She thanked us and said it was the hardest half she’d ever done. One of my favorite moments of the day was having Christine’s Son AJ with us, who ran the 5K. AJ loves running and helped us with timing at the finish line during this year’s Buck Fifty. He clapped and smiled that whole day watching all the teams finish. It was such a joy for me to see this young man give back to us. We rewarded him with a free entry into the 5K yesterday. He did what AJ does. Ran hard and finished with a big smile!!! As Christine and I talked at the finish, she all of a sudden asked: “Where is the Brick”? All eyes turned to William as he worked on this project, only to get a wry smile from him when it hit him that he’d left The Brick at home. We all laughed and chalked that one up to something that, with a few more people helping us out, we can improve on next time.
When you host a race in July, you know it’s going to be hot, so last year our own Tim Gardner brought popsicles for all the runners. This year, leading up to the race, Anna Karr thankfully reminded us of that treat and mentioned a Kona Ice Truck. We’ve had a good friend of The Buck Fifty Buzz Perri have his Aunt Vee’s Italian Ice stand at many of our races, so I reached out to Buzz to chip in. We bought Italian Ices for all participants, and if you have never tried them, you need to. They are like a colorful smile of coolness for your mouth. This year’s race wasn’t nearly as hot as last year’s, but in the end we felt better prepared with water and refreshments. Who knows what we can improve upon next year.
So, is it about the money? We’ll that certainly helps us pay the bills, but if that is your only focal point, you’ve probably missed the greatest reward your life may ever receive. The giving of your time to help others, the work to push yourself to do things you maybe once thought weren’t possible, and the relationships we build along the way doing both. IT’S JUST AN AWESOME RACE, AND I CAN’T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN!!!
Dave Huggins
Race Director
