Wednesday night I opt’d to not run in the French 5K trail race. I tweaked my ankle, and I have Grandma’s half marathon on Saturday, so I felt that resting it was a better choice. So I showed up with my wife (who was running) and offered my services as a volunteer. This time I got assigned to help call numbers at the finish line.

The race is chip timed, but to ensure accuracy there are two additional manual systems that record numbers as people come across the finish. Being such a short race people weren’t spread out as much and so reading everyone’s number took a lot of effort. This involved 2 people (including myself) shouting out numbers as they approached while 2 other folks manually typed up every number we entered. It was a ton of fun, and a challenge unlike I’ve ever had to do before. By the end of the evening my voice was pretty sore.

I was told I did a good job though, so I’ll take that as a win. I had a great time, and the beer and pizza at the end was a great reward. Plus, I got to hang out with a great team of people as we helped runners to have a really great race.