SoreLegsLongDistance: +1 Volunteering

Quick recap: I’m in the middle of a 9+1 journey to the 2019 TCS NYC Marathon. (Hashtag: #SoreLegsLongDistance). This means that to guarantee entry into the marathon, you can become a member of the New York Road Runners for a full year, complete at least nine NYRR-scored, qualifying races, and volunteer for one. Or if you really hate volunteering, NYRR gives you an option to donate $1,000 to NYRR’s youth and community services programs instead. In case you missed my 3-part series on my massive pile of student loan debt (Part 1, 2A, 2B, 3), suffice it to say, I “chose” to volunteer. I’m 5 races into my 9, although I have only recapped 3 of them for you so far, because I didn’t want to bore/scare away all 5 of my readers. Hi Mommy! Hi Daddy!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: my +1. Not +1 like “who the hell am I supposed to bring with me to this wedding?!” This is much better. An3.d much earlier. My call time for volunteering was 6:30 am. And it was COLD. But luckily, I live only 5 minutes away from our check-in place. So I rolled out of bed at 6, made an egg for breakfast, and bundled up. According to the NYRR website, they “highly recommend volunteering in the first half of the year, before completing nine races.” They say that it’s because there are many spots at the early races, but also because spots quickly fill up later in the year as many runners (like me!) rush to fulfill their requirements by December 31. I chose the Shape Half Marathon to volunteer because I liked the idea of volunteering at an all-female race, plus, I ran the race last year, so I knew how good it felt to finish and get my hardware!

My assignment was Medals, which I picked on purpose because I would much rather place a medal on the neck of a very thankful-to-be-done runner, than have water thrown back in my face by a holy-shit-there-are-8-more-miles!? runner.

Our first task was to check in and eat bagels and coffee. I did this very well. I sported my highlighter-yellow vest and cute volunteer hat (which we got to keep!) and consumed hot coffee, although it was difficult to decide whether to drink the coffee for warmth inside my body, or just hold it in the cup, to provide warmth to my hands. Luckily, NYRR also gave us hand warmers, which were life-saving. After coffee and bagels, we were presented with 40 boxes of medals, which we were supposed to untangle and hang on medal racks, to make it easier for us to hand out later.

There were about 20 of us on medal duty, so this did not take much time. That was unfortunate because the water station people were short-handed. They saw that we were finished early and poached us to fill cups with water. This was not a fun task. First of all, filling thousands of cups is incredibly tedious. Also, spilling water when it is freezing is not fun. Lastly, this was a much more difficult task than you would think. Here’s why: even though it was 30 degrees, it was late April, which means it was technically spring. Pollen and other gross residue was falling off all of the trees above, and falling into our water cups. I think we spent just as much time emptying pollen from cups as we did filling the actual cups with water. UGH. Luckily our Medal Team Captain convinced the Water Team Captain that he needed all of us for medal distribution (shoutout Bob!) After a quick bathroom break, we lined up at the medal racks, ready to hand out shiny things to the finishers. (Pro tip: did you know there is a not-so-terrible public restroom underneath the bridge that goes beneath the 72^nd Street underpass to Bethesda Terrace!? I didn’t. But it is definitely preferable to port-potties.)

I had SO MUCH FUN volunteering. I loved cheering on runners, telling them congratulations, and seeing the looks of relief and accomplishment all over their faces. Their smiles were HUGE! I especially loved when I had an extra second to put the medals around the runners’ necks, like I was crowning them for their huge achievement. Of the 20 Medal volunteers, about 10 of them were women. My favorite runners were the ones who insisted on receiving their medals from the female volunteers. #GirlPower! They said, “I ran this whole race with thousands of women; I didn’t get through the finish line to be congratulated by a man.” YOU GO GURL.

Although you are only required to volunteer once, NYRR encourages you to “give back to the community regularly,” and I fully plan to volunteer again once I’m done running all of these races. It was a great feeling, and a lot of runners thanked me, since many of them have done 9+1 and know what it is like to volunteer your time. Overall, it was an awesome experience and I can’t wait to do it again! Maybe I’ll get some more swag. I still sport my hat sometimes!