Well, this was my first volunteer experience. The Stockade-athon is a big event – the oldest 15k in the country!

 It was a chilly morning and since I wouldn’t be running, I dressed warmly. I arrived about 15 min. before the start of the race, and Schenectady’s Central Park was packed.  I had to park quite a distance away.

I immediately ran into my friend Mary and gave her a good luck hug.  I then walked around looking for information on what to do as a volunteer.  I bumped into another finish volunteer and we chatted and waited together.

After the race started, we finally were given a free tee shirt (long sleeve coolmax 🙂 ), our clipper, collection bin and instructions.

And we just waited… We were able to see the runners at mile 1 and I spotted Mary:

Finally the elite runners came into view!  The winner ran it at a 5 minute mile pace WOW!  It was fun to see him cross as well as all the others.

I even got to cut the chip off of the winning female! 

I never realized how important a volunteer is until now.  These runners were drained at the end of the race and I can’t count how many said “Thank you for volunteering!”

One guy said to me: “This is my 1st long race & my 70th birthday.”

Finally I saw Mary and she ran to me to cut off her chip & then I took her photo:

I met Mary in June when she was struggling to finish a 5k.  We have run 5 5ks together since then.  She used to call me her “inspiration” because I was faster & could finish in under 30 min.  She finally did that too in Oct.  Since then, she has run several 10ks, a half marathon and a 15k!!!! Now she’s my inspiration.

After all the runners had crossed the finish line, we left and were invited to the Fireside Pizzeria for free pizza, wings & drinks!

I highly recommend volunteering!  It is so rewarding!  It does make you wish you were a runner in the race.  For me, the decision was easy: I haven’t run this distance before and the times were fast.  However, next year, I may run it but I will definitely volunteer again at some race!

Since today was World Run Day and I signed up for it & got a tee shirt.  My REST day turned into a 1 mile neighborhood loop:

 

The day ended with a dinner to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of my Mah Jongg group:

Happy Running! Congratulations to all those NYC Marathoners!