These things are bound to happen, mainly due to the large contingency of actual marathon runners that work for the United States Postal Service who have decided to sabotage our operation by conveniently “losing” packages.

But FEAR NOT! We at Ridiculo.us have developed a slick, four-step workaround that will allow you to participate even without your packet. Behold:

Honest Abe’s Never-Fail, Emergency, Don’t-Freak-Out, I-Didn’t-Get-My-Package Contingency Plan, AKA “Plan B”, AKA “Operation Albatross”

Step 1. Breathe

Don’t panic! Panicking may cause you to become stressed, and stress makes you sweat. Making you sweat is the opposite of what Run Free 2013 is all about. So take a deep breath and go to your happy place.

Step 2. Email 

If your race packet has not arrived by the end of the day on Thursday, January 31^st, send an email to kyle@ridiculo.us. Include the name you registered on Kickstarter, as well as what reward level you selected (or if you purchased a registration on Shopify post-kickstarter, give us the name you ordered under).

Step 3. Print

We will email you a copy of the race program (so that you can all the pertinent race-day information) as well as a pdf copy of your bib. This will be the same file that was sent to the printer, so the color and layout will match. You can print this out and wear it on race day.

Step 4. Follow up

We’ll follow up with you after the race to see if the rest of your packet arrived. If it did, awesome! Sorry it was late! If it didn’t, we’ll get a replacement out right away.

Questions

What about the rest of my stuff? Don’t I need that for race day? 

Not necessarily. For many (real) runners, wearing the race shirt on the day of the event is considered a sign of an amateur. In fact, if you go to a real marathon (not recommended) you’ll see that most people are not wearing the race shirt during the actual race.

The rest of the materials, including the race bracelet and race medals (if you ordered them) wouldn’t be worn during the race anyways, so you won’t need them for race-day pictures.

Can’t you overnight me some new stuff?

We could, but there’s no guarantee that it would get there (if they lost it once, they could lose it twice). Plus, overnighting is extremely expensive, and odds are the original package will probably get there a day or two after the race (because that’s how the postal service works… they get you stuff right AFTER you needed it).

Like we said, this backup plan is to ensure that you have what you need for race day. After the race we can work on getting you the rest of your rewards.

Will the race number you send me be the same one listed on the site?

Yes. We’ll send you a pdf that matches what your bib would’ve looked like in terms of the name and number on the bib, the color of the bib, etc. It’s the same file we sent to the printers.

Why did this happen to me?!

It’s anybody’s guess, really. In all likelihood, the universe is upset with you for some terrible wrong that you’ve committed, probably in secret, and possibly without knowing about it.

In all seriousness though, stuff like this is bound to happen. We shipped out the packages in plenty of time, and you’re probably a decent person who the universe has nothing against, but sometimes the postal service loses packages. We can’t control that, but we’ll do whatever we can to make sure you get to run.

We understand that this is probably a huge bummer for you. If there were a way for us to guarantee that no packages would be lost, we’d sign up for that on day one! We also wish we had budget to overnight replacement packages to everyone who didn’t get theirs.

But unfortunately, we don’t. We’re trying to do the best with what we have available, and ensure that everyone who signed up can participate in the race, even if their packet went missing somewhere between here and there.

Hopefully everyone gets their packets on time and nobody even reads this page. But for those that do, we offer our sincerest apologies. We promise we shipped your package on time (actually, we probably shipped it early). Thanks for your understanding. We’ll see you at the finish line!

Sincerely,

-Kyle, Honest Abe, & the rest of Team Ridiculo.us

Now your friends can save themselves the time of buying posterboard and sharpies and coming up with funny race slogans.

Instead, they can just print out one of these, write your name in the blanks, and be good to go! If that doesn’t fit in with the laid-back nature of this race, we don’t know what does.

Each sign is available in either 8.5×11 or 11×17 format. Click the appropriate link to download all 9!

WE DID IT! Last Friday evening we triumphantly crossed the finish line, then collapsed in a fit of exhaustion and entered a long nap/short coma. When we woke up this morning, we learned the following:

1. Our project ended up raising $23,098 from 592 backers!

2. Those 592 backers represent over 900 runners!

2. We ended up being Kickstarter’s 27th most-funded photography project of all time!

3. Apparently it’s December now!

4. We overuse exclamation points!!!!

We also found that, during our nap/coma, we apparently managed to send out the surveys to our wonderful backers, although we have no memory of this. So make sure to fill those out and get them turned in ASAP.

We’ve had lots of people ask if they can still register. The answer is yes. Post-kickstarter registrants will pay more, and they won’t get the kickstarter exclusives (like names on their bibs, etc.), but they’ll still be able to join in the race-day fun.

If you know someone who would like to register, send them here. If they register by 12/12/12, they can use the coupon code KICKSTARTER to take $5 off the price, (which still means they’re paying more than you did, so don’t worry!).

We should have our race site up in the next few days. We can’t WAIT to show you what we’ve come up with. And we’ve also got some other big news on the horizon that we’re having a hard time keeping to ourselves. So keep your eyes on your inboxes, friends.And keep those training pictures coming!

-Kyle, Honest Abe, & the rest of Team Ridiculo.us

P.S. One more thing we want to clarify: the Kickstarter rewards all state an estimated delivery date of February 2013, which may have freaked some of you out since the race is on February 2nd. Have no fear. We’ll be shipping everything out mid-January so that it has plenty of time to get to you before race day!