The race is based on his blerch comic on why he runs...to escape the blerch and because he likes to eat crappy food like cake. He was hoping to get some couch potatoes off their butts to train for either the 10k, half, or full marathon. He definitely succeeded, and people flew in from all over the country. He actually ended up having a second race the day before since it was so popular, and is going to plan races around the country! He ended up making a "virtual race" where you can order a race kit and run on your own time. There were cities that had organized virtual races on their own.
I saw on FB they still needed volunteers for Sunday, and since I was going up anyway, I signed up to help at the aid stations.
We got there pretty early- it was in Carnation. Andy went to get ready for his race, and I went to aid station A with my group. I was glad to get that one because it was for the full marathon's mile 1 and 4 so we were done really fast. Also, we didn't have to do anything for set-up except mix electrolytes since we didn't have food at ours. The problem with being at mile 1, is even the people that are going very slow and the people going very fast are only a few minutes apart. It was CHAOS! We were slinging water faster than our arms could move. Mile 4 on their way back was a bit easier at least. It was so fun and everyone was so nice saying thank you for volunteering.
After the people had slowed down, a couple of us went to aid station B since it was one where EVERYONE was going by and had a lot more going on. They were going to need more help. I was able to hand out cake, magic purple beverages (from one of his running comics), and make nutella sandwiches. I also got to see Andy! The people in the blerch costumes were hilarious, telling people things like "you need to slow your pace a little" and "why don't you have a seat on the couch over here." It was really funny. It was about 3 miles from the finish.
After Andy finished he came back to pick me up (I had snagged rides from other volunteers). He told me he saw a guy laying down and breathing hard and paramedics were helping him. He was concerned because you hear about people just dropping in things like this, and he wish there was a way to follow up to make sure the man was ok. Unfortunately we found out the next day that the man, only 28, had passed away just a half a mile from the finish line. We both were very upset to hear, and makes us nervous about doing things like that, but we realized we just have to make sure not to push yourself too hard and keep hydrated. Most of these people have problems they did't know about, and you just have to hope you aren't one of them. The benefits of exercise outweigh the chances of things like this happening.
Here are some pictures I took on my phone:
 |
| My volunteer shirt- I wish I got a pic of Andy's race shirt, they were NICE! Half-zip tech jackety things |
 |
| working on those sandwiches- the cups in the back had cake |
 |
| Here comes Andy |
No comments:
Post a Comment