Inside-Out Sports Classic Half Marathon - Saturday

I joined the NC Road Runners newsgroup at the beginning of the year, and in March they sent out requests for volunteers to help with the race. One of the positions they wanted help with was "volunteer coordinator". I mentioned this to Elizabeth and she signed up (not really knowing what to expect).

Elizabeth worked really hard to get volunteers signed up for the large number of open positions and even overcome late drop outs to ensure that the majority of the positions were filled for race weekend. It had proven hard to get people to sign up to help with the "grunt" work of loading and unloading the supply truck at a variety of locations, so we signed up to help load the truck on Saturday morning. We met the race director (who was driving the rental truck) and one other experienced race volunteer/organizer at the "shed" to load the truck at 9am on Saturday. As we loaded coolers, Gatorade, water and other supplies in to the truck, I offered to help unload the truck at Race HQ as the race director would have had to do this on his own.

We unloaded supplies at Inside Out Sports ("Early Packet Pickup") and loaded more water (30 x 40lb water containers) in to the truck. We then unloaded the remainder of the supplies at Race HQ. I rushed back home to pick up Elizabeth, then we headed back to Inside Out Sports to oversee Early Packet Pickup.

We arrived at 1pm (Early Packet Pickup was meant to begin at 2pm) and realized that we were all alone, and we weren't expecting any of the other volunteers to arrive until 2pm (lesson for next year: have volunteers arrive 30 minutes early!). As we began to set up the tables, people continuously came up to us asking whether they could collect their race numbers and shirts - obviously ignoring us running around frantically trying to get ready and that it wasn't anywhere near 2pm yet!

The temperature was in the low 90's (30C), the sun was beating down and we had no shade at all. The wind made the task of hanging the signs very difficult and blew everything that wasn't held down off of the tables. The boxes holding the race shirts were mixed and unmarked and to make things even more difficult we had multiple registration lists!

At 2pm, we had 4 volunteers including Elizabeth and I, and approximately 40 people waiting to collect their numbers and shirts. I had had grand plans of putting race maps up on an easel and setting up the Late Registration table, all of which had to go on hold as both Elizabeth and I now had to man a section. I took A-E, and my first runner was someone that had signed up too late to get a race shirt. The website clearly stated that you would only get a shirt if you signed up before May 6th (because the shirts have to be ordered in time to arrive for race weekend and they are expensive, so race organizers typically set a cut off date). The lady in question had signed up on May 9th and her number said "Shirt:NO". I tried to explain calmly that she signed up after the cut off date, and as a result wouldn't get a shirt, but that she was welcome to come back after the race to see if any unclaimed shirts were left. Ignoring the 15 people standing in the blazing sun behind her, she proceeded to argue with me that she had signed up before May 6th and had paid the same fee as everyone else. My patience was running thin - I had spent the morning driving all over Raleigh, loading and unloading heavy supplies, rushing around to set up registration and was now handing out numbers and shirts - and the last thing I wanted was the first person giving me a hard time...

She eventually got the message, and left unhappy and annoyed at me for not giving her a shirt, without a thank you.

More volunteers arrived over the next 45 minutes, and we got in to a good rhythm. I have collected many numbers and shirts from volunteers before, and have always thanked them - but I will make more of an effort to make sure they realize that I appreciate them volunteering in future!

I finally managed to get some maps up on the easel and Elizabeth and I left with a nice sunburn at around 3:45. We rushed home, cooked dinner and left the house for our evening's out. I knew I was severely dehydrated and drunk as much water as I could over the next few hours before finally getting to sleep at around 11:30pm