Sunday, April 22, 2012

Mid-week volunteer interlude..

Finally.  It's light for 14 hours a day here and sometimes I can run without tights and gloves.  For whatever reason, it is much harder to to go from tights to shorts in the Spring than it is to go from shorts to tights in the Fall for me.  In the Fall I delay wearing tights as long as possible fighting the inevitable coming of winter but in the Spring I hate being cold when running.  

One nice recent development are a few mid-week race offered in the evenings.  The Ravenna Weeknight Race series started at 6:30 and offered a 4k, 8k and 12k. And no, i didn't race this because I'm planning on racing a half marathon on trails in a week and a half. 

So I did the next best thing, I volunteered at the race.  I had to leave work just a bit early and showed up in time to chop watermelon and cart some things about.  Soon RPD and GVB showed up and picked up their bibs.  I'd never been in this part of Ravenna Park even though I run through the area frequently.  It had poured earlier in the morning and would pour the next day but for the evening, it was ever so pleasant and so were everyone's attitudes.  Relaxed and happy.  

After the race started, I moved to finish line bib monitor.  That meant I wrote everyone's bib number and time as they came through the lap/finish line chutes.  This is back up for the chip recording system.  Easy enough but standing around for a couple hours is harder on my back then running hard!  I was really stiff the next day.  I'd hoped to run one of these races but we are out of town for one and then it's the week of another half marathon I'm planning.  Oh well.  volunteering is fun too especially when you take home a pizza extra from the race. 

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