I signed up to volunteer at Danskin this year. I was willing to do anything they needed me to do. After all, I regularly race in Austin and have experienced the results of tons of volunteers in my race history. I needed to give back.
When I received my assignment to work at the water stops, I prepared myself for a long hot morning in the sun. The assignment came with a 5:15 arrival time at the Travis County Expo Center (yikes) to take the shuttle over to Decker Lake. I should have known that taking a shuttle to the race meant for a long morning.
11:30 pm Saturday night - Chad and I crash after a long day at our running retreat.
4:00 am Sunday - My alarm goes off to get ready for Danskin. I put on all of my clothes that had been prepared and ready to go. Breakfast down the hatch...check. Sunscreen...check. Hat...check. Water bottle and snacks...check.
4:40 am - Start driving to Expo Center
5:15 am - arrive at Expo Center (the traffic hadn't really built up, yet), line up for shuttle, ride with a bus full of excited women, ready to race.
5:30 am - arrive at volunteer tent and give the nice lady my name 'Sadie Barrs'. She hunts for my name and can't find it. Hmmm...'I don't have you on my list, but here's your shirt. You can go ahead and wait over by the sign for the water stops and someone will come take you to your assignment.' Okay, fair enough, but that is so weird that my name was not on the list. I even RSVPed that I would be there. No matter. I'm here to help.
6:00 am - realize that the reason my name wasn't on the list is because I am not Sadie Barrs. Doh! I walk back to the volunteer tent and try to explain...'Um, when I was here last, I gave her the wrong name. I forgot that my last name is Jones.'
She gives me a really weird look...'You forgot your name?'
'Um, yeah, I got married in March, and I guess it was too early for me this morning to remember that I have a new last name. Sorry. I wanted to make sure that my name, Sadie Jones, was highlighted on your list so that Leilani wouldn't think I was a no-show. I made sure to RSVP with her, so I didn't want her to think that I skipped out. I know it is kind of strange to forget your last name. Sorry.'
We have a good laugh for a moment and she takes care of marking me down.
6:15 am - We're still waiting for someone to come get us to take us to the water stops. I meet some nice ladies who are close in age to me. When they finally come to tell us where we are going, I end up in a group of 6 who go to man the water stops 1&2. The group of girls is great, and we get the tables set up rather quickly. We are at the first stop after transition on the run, and then because the course loops back around, the back side of our stop is at the top of a long gradual hill about halfway through the race.
7:00 am - The race starts. We won't see runners for a while.
At some point we see the leaders start to trickle in and then the crowd slowly builds. Our team is working really well together to keep the cups of water out, but it seems like our table is being slammed. I go behind the table and help pour new cups of water to replenish the ones being handed out. I swear that I poured probably 2000 cups in about an hour and a half. This, along with the girl next to me who is also pouring that many cups. We cannot push them out fast enough. It becomes rather zen-like to pull a cup out of the stack and place it on the table with the left hand, while maintaining a continuous pour from the pitcher with my right hand. The wind was incredibly strong, so we couldn't put empty cups out on the table to fill at a more efficient pace. I don't even look up to see anyone running from about 8:30-10:00am. Sorry if I missed you!
10:00-10:30am - At some point in the morning, we slow down with the stream of runners enough so that I can change positions from being the pourer. I hand out cups for a while, and then Ron Perry comes over and helps us get a head start on picking up cups. I spend about 30 minutes bent over picking up thousands of cups without a rake. Ummm...my hamstrings and glutes were screaming from Saturday's workouts.
11:00am - I make a crucial mistake of the morning...They needed someone to go to waterstop #5 to relieve someone. Nobody at our stop is wanting to go, so I feel like I need to. After all, I was willing to do anything they asked me to do from the beginning. When I arrive at the stop, I see that there are only 3 other people there, but that they had it under control. Seriously, once I arrived, there was always one person without a job to do. All of their trash had been picked up. The number of runners was really small at this point. Also, we were completely exposed in the sun. In hindsight, I should have just walked up the hill to the finish (1/2 mile) and gone home, but I couldn't imagine passing some of the walkers as they finished their race.
12:00-ish - The last runner comes through, and I must say that it was inspirational seeing her at the end of the race. She was in good spirits and was obviously going to make it to the end. We pack up the remaining things at the water stop and hopped on the cart to be taken to the finish. I was hustling to get to my car, but remembered that we had to take the shuttle back to the expo center. Just as we get to the road, I see the shuttle leave. Damn! I was 2 minutes too late.
I decide to wait for the next shuttle, but people are so anxious to get home that they are walking the 1-1.5 miles back to the expo center parking lot. It is so freaking hot, I decide to wait.
You would think that there would be a shuttle available to take all of the volunteers who stayed until the last runner came through. You would think that. Nope.
The shuttle that we missed by 2 minutes was the last shuttle of the day. We all had to walk to the Expo Center parking lot in the heat. I didn't even race, and I was completely wiped out. The Saturday workouts at the running retreat followed by 5 hours of sleep followed by a morning full of bending and walking had taken its toll.
I arrived home around
1:45 pm. Exhausted.
Will I ever volunteer for Danskin again? I might sign up to do packet pick-up. Everyone was really nice and helpful....we just need more volunteers to make the jobs a little easier for everyone. Our water stop would have been a lot less frantic if we had more people to help.
Also, a later shuttle would have been nice.
