Triathlon - Race Organizing

A friend of mine's wife is wanting to put on a 5K race for their school late this summer and she asked me for a bunch of ideas and advice. I gave her what I could from my limited experience but to her it was a truck load and now she wants me to organize the thing. I would like to but my major concern is that I live about 200 miles away from where it will take place and secondly I have never organized a race before. She does already have clearance from the local police jurisdiction to hold a race, so that hurdle is clear.

So, here are my questions for those that have organized races before:

1) How much time will I need to devote to this project?

2) What are the essentials for a 5K? Volunteers, fire, police ambulance, vending, etc.

3) What is a good fee for a new race?

4) Would she be better off with an established race organizing group? What would they charge?

5) If I do this what should I charge?

I know there is a lot to this and I want to help so any help you can provide would be great.

Thanks,
Fred

I have never organized a race before but gave a lot of thought into doing so. I have talked to others who been involved so I will only offer some suggestions.

1) How much time will I need to devote to this project? 6 months

2) What are the essentials for a 5K? Volunteers, fire, police ambulance, vending, etc. Volunteers (churches are a good source for them), police to block streets, access to ambulance or paramedic, local sponsors, major vendors and crowd support

3) What is a good fee for a new race? $25 for a 5k

4) Would she be better off with an established race organizing group? What would they charge? No, if she wants to learn how to do it, she should be involved. I don't know what they would charge but it would be more than one can digest.

5) If I do this what should I charge? As much as you want. Your time is of value.

I know there is a lot to this and I want to help so any help you can provide would be great.

Check out the "RD Aids" section on SlowTwitch.com: http://www.slowtwitch.com/RD_Aids/index.html

Being a 5K addict and being a race director for a while, I think that I can answer 1-4 (#5 is your thing).

- If you are organizing a brand new race, budget at least 200 hours for the project. In addition to trying to contact (and secure) sponsors, you got to deal with government/police/city hall etc to make sure everything goes right
-there are a few essentials about a 5k race (and most of them have to do with securing the roads and having paramedic help in case someone has problems and -absolutely essential- measuring the race exactly so it is a 5K and not an inch more and the obvious, get a good time keeping way). But, there are a lot of things that would be classified on the "nice to do" things or a differentiating factor for a race: Sponsors, cool shirts, goody bags, plenty of parking nearby, port-a-potties, raffle prices, prices for winners, etc)
- $25 would be ok around here, depending on the goodies. $20 is more of the norm
- She would be 1000% better with an established group. They would get at least the major thing right: the timing. But she would need to do lots of work for the other things mentioned, because they don't do it. And unless someone has a $10000 investment in timing equiptment and a website to upload results, a pro is a must...

Good luck