Race Day Volunteer

This entry will be my first test of the publish with a future date option of the WordPress App. Right now it’s 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, if this works it will publish at 12:30 p.m on Sunday. (The photo above was taken on race day as I got to my station. Though it’s grainy and all orange, I kind of like the gritty effect.)

Today is my first time volunteering with a marathon. In 2008, I started working out in a regular basis. New Year’s Day 2009 was my first race, a 5 mile run to start off my new resolution.

I have run two half marathons and two marathons this year, and each event has had great volunteers. Since I’m still in recovery mode from my first one, today I will be giving back to the running community.

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Volunteering was a good and instructive experience for me. I was placed at the intersection of Bird and Minnesota Aves. It was so close to the meet up place I walked there (assignments were given out randomly at 6:15 a.m.)

I got to see the start of the race and the runners at their freshest and near the end, my station was in mile 2 and mile 24 of the race as much of the race was run back on itself.

Notable points included:

– The male pace leaders (two run by me the second time almost in line) and the female leader were all separated by the rest of the pack by a lot.

– I saw very few people with water belts (like I wear), and none of those that did were near the front

– Near the end of the day, everyone had less energy: runners, spectators, and volunteers like me

– Even though my cheering (my job to both cheer on runners and guide traffic/keep street traffic away from runners) wasn’t always original peppered with phrases like “Good job!” “Looking good/great!” “You can do it!” and calling to the runners by name, by things on their shirts or to the pace groups directly, it seemed appreciated by most people.

While I still enjoy running more than being a spectator or volunteer, I will definitely volunteer or help out with future races in some way.