Now that we’re all done talking about LMAD, I can catch you up on these 52 volunteer activities! (Sorry, we have sort of a lot of catching up to do!)
During this project, I’ve been making my way around the various possible race stations.
I wanted an idea of what it was like to actually work each stop, as opposed to running by and imagining what the volunteers’ jobs must be like.
I’m pretty sure a water stop is the hardest one.
One thing that was interesting about this water stop was that in the 10k, people passed us on the way up the hill, then on their way down a hill (after they went around it from the other side and came back toward us), and then a 3rd time as they went past us.
Okay, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t make sense… So, let me try to help out. (Sorry, this is going to be almost a silly amount of detail specific. So, if that’s boring, just come back later!)
Imagine we’re in the middle of an intersection. People run up the hill. They pass by us. (We’re on their left.) They make a right turn. They go down that street, and somewhere they go up, because the next time we see them, we’re in front of them as they run down toward us. They pass us again (this time on their left) as they run in the other direction on the street perpendicular with the hill.
Whatever they then do after that, eventually, they turn around, because then they come back up the other lane on that same street and pass us (on their left) as they make a right turn to go back down the hill, toward where they first came in the first place.
Phew! Got all that? ‘Cause there’s gonna be a test. (I’m kidding. There will not be a test.)
Anyway, they passed us so many times. We had a diamond shape of tables in the middle of the intersection. On the one hand, I saw why we did this, because people were coming at us from basically all angles.
On the other hand, when we set up the tables in the morning, we do did not put them close enough. It felt like a lot of running back and forth to get water.
I mean, I guess you don’t want the table right on top of you either. You do want space to get out of a runner’s way, I think… But you also don’t want to have to trek back to get water, ’cause you gotta be fast!
And this is where I’ll pick up next time.