Prior to last weekend’s Griffith Park Trail Races (GPTR) which consisted of a Half Marathon, Marathon, and newly featured 50K, this was the only Keira Henninger race I have not been involved with in some way, shape, or form. She organizes seven races – that I know of – so I suppose it was only a matter of time before I got to this one. But the GPTR have been the only races where I have not volunteered, nor participated in.
Sean O’Brien? Ran and volunteered.
Leona Divide? Ran.
Paramount Ranch? Ran.
Griffith Park Trail Half Marathon in November? Ran and volunteered.
Griffith Park Trail 10K in November? Ran and volunteered.
Ray Miller? Ran and volunteered.
When I’ve volunteered, I’ve done everything from manning an aid station, checking runners in, serving soup at the finish line, and even directing runners on a tricky turn of a corner using my red pom poms that I bought specifically for that sole reason.
This time around, Keira put me in charge of drop bags. I’ve never been in charge of drop bags at a race, but the task seemed simple enough: make sure the drop bags are placed in their correct area so they can be transported to their designated aid station. I was still a bit nervous.
I, for one, did not want to be responsible for a drop bag that should’ve been at one aid station and it was taken to a different one. Okay, who would want to be responsible for that???
The 50K had two drop bag locations – Bird Sanctuary and Compost Center, and the Marathon only had one – Bird Sanctuary. So, I decided to make some signs.
However, deciding to make signs wasn’t entirely because I wanted to be super helpful, or organized. Alright, maybe I did. But I also wanted to tap into my minimalist mode, and get rid of some items I had hovering around, which in this case was some poster board and markers. Boy, were these signs helpful!
There were many runners who knew the purpose of drop bags, and they were most likely experienced trail runners, but there were definitely quite a few who had no clue as to why anyone would have them. In fact, there were a select few who probably didn’t even looked at the race website based on the questions I received.
One person who is well-versed in the trail running world is Luisa (@lacorredora65 on Instagram) who I tend to run into at these things. She’s one of the hardest working ladies out there and was about to give it her all in the 50K.
For the most part things went smoothly. I got out to Griffith Park around 4:30AM. Parked. Headed over to the start/finish area and retrieved two tarps to lay down with some lamps because it was super dark. I taped my signs down so they didn’t magically disappear somewhere. They’re a hot ticket one-of-a-kind item, ya know!
Runners slowly began to filter in and stopped by to mark their bags with their bib numbers so they could be numerically ordered at the aid stations, and easily found once they got there.
Needless to say, there weren’t actually too many drop bags to contend with. Eventually, once the races started, all the drop bags were transported to their destinations by another volunteer, and I, along with several others, helped with setting up the finish line goodies, namely setting out the food and laying out the awesome medals.
Before I left, I spoke to Keira, and told her I’ll see her next month. Yes. Next month. At Leona Divide. But no, I won’t be volunteering this time around. That’s because I have officially signed up for my first race of 2017 and it will indeed be the Leona Divide 50K!
It’s a race that is near and dear to my heart, and I’m absolutely excited about returning! Not just because it’ll be my first race of the year, but because it just so happens to land on Earth Day – April 22nd, and 22 is my favorite number! I subtly mentioned this to Keira that 22 is my favorite number.
Twenty-Two is my favorite number Keira!! Hint, Hint. Wink, Wink.
Maybe she’ll insert a 22 into my bib number. Since Javelina Jundred didn’t give it to me. Bastards. And THAT’S why my race went to shambles!!!
I kid, of course. 😉
Thanks for reading!
p.s. If you’d like to watch a very short video on the starts for these races, check out this very short video of them:
I sure hope you get #22 🙂 We can take all the good luck we can get sometimes! I an excited for your first race this year! I have a few pacing events this spring…if I didn’t have them, there were events on the opposite weekends I would have rather run – maybe next year!
I hope so too! Thank you! Pacing sounds awesome! That’s definitely one thing I have not done. Maybe the opportunity will come up at some point. 🙂