“I’ve been a runner for a while and I’ve had the idea for a while as well because I have lost a few belongings," admits Blue Trailer Owner Molly MacDonald. "I’ve also had to do things like go to a race during the winter and I knew that I would warm up on the run so I didn’t want to wear a sweatshirt or something heavy, so I wouldn’t have to suffer before I would start running because the options some of these races have for storage aren’t that great.”
Face it. If you're like Molly and compete in races, triathalons and whatever, you know what she is talking about--it's hard to find a place to keep your stuff!
“Otherwise you’re sort of surrendering your stuff to the bag check or you hide it in a bush, or hang it from a tree like people do to avoid bears and something like that!” laughed MacDonald.
Molly (seen on the left) is a runner. And when she used to show up to these big running events she noticed the lack of a place to secure your valuables like cell phones, keys, change of clothes, sweatshirts to stay warm which she wouldn't need during the race, etc, yet have easy access to them before the race began. So she came up with an idea…
“Before you run you want to be comfortable and you want to have all the things you want to have before the race,” adds MacDonald. “And not to have to wait in line at a bag check or worry about if it is in a bush or in a tree with the bears and all of that stuff.”
So her idea was to build a business based upon this need--simply put; weld banks of lockers onto a trailer and have it be almost like a self-propelled locker room to travel around the region for these types of races!
Blue Trailer now offers runners caught in her predicament the option of a secure, safe place to lock up their pre-race valuables. The Blue Trailer lockers can be accessed by the runners who would otherwise have to stand in lines at the complimentary bag checks—IF the event even offered those bag checks.
“We are launching on March 1st, and Blue Trailer provides runners at athletic events with convenient storage for their personal belongings while they are running in the event,” MacDonald explains. “Basically what the service is using the lockers that we purchased from SchoolLockers.com. It is a mobile locker service for road races and other outdoor events.”
Using her creativity, and knowledge about what runners need during these events, she formulated a plan and began gathering all the needed things to put her plan into motion.
“Our idea has been received very, very well and it’s been definitely encouraging. We are launching on March 1st and we have 25 events booked so far and our goal for our first year is to book 100 events. I think we’re in a pretty good place pre-launch to be a 25 percent of the goal for the year,” MacDonald shared. “So the race directors have been pretty receptive to it and the runners themselves are really excited to have that convenience.”
With her idea being received well, she then began to look for lockers and a trailer.
“We ordered the cell phone lockers and they are 9” x 6” x 6” and SchoolLockers.com had the only option for a good, smaller size,” said MacDonald. “When it came to that sized locker everyone else did not have what worked for our needs, so SchooLockers.com was really the only source that had that smaller size that we needed for the trailer.”
MacDonald admits to asking SchoolLockers.com Sales Rep Gregg Lowry an awful lot of questions.
“Gregg was awesome, he was really helpful especially because I had to change my quantities and I had a million questions,” MacDonald laughs. “We just wanted to make sure the units would work, so I ordered one and then I had to put in the second order and he was great because he had to postpone my order since I was waiting to hear from my welders and he was very patient and great to work with.”
So after her test run, and consulting her welders who will make the trailer, she now has 608 lockers for her new business venture. What color are they? But GRAY of course!
“Well I got gray but we’re going to be painting them soon! If you go to my website, one of the colors in our logo is a vermilion blue and so that is the color they’re going to be painted, so they’re gray right now,” laughs MacDonald.
“I definitely would recommend SchoolLockers.com,” said MacDonald. “Gregg was just really great to work with and it was a good experience and the lockers I actually assembled one of the units myself yesterday and they are high quality and if anyone ever came to me looking to order a bunch of lockers for some wild project, I definitely would call SchoolLockers.com!”
If you have an event and need Molly's soon-to-be-painted Blue Trailer Lockers, CLICK HERE
