I liked it so much, I did it twice! Last year I volunteered at the TCS NYC Marathon. If you recall, that was the push I needed to decide to run the 2016 NYC Marathon!
This year I signed up for the PowerBar gel station located right before Mile 18. Luckily my shift didn’t start until 9:30 a.m. so I didn’t have to wake up super early. I boarded the 7:55 a.m. Metro North train to Grand Central.
Kim runs on Dunkin’ |
The train was 10 minutes late but I still got to Manhattan with plenty of time to spare. One short subway ride and a 10 minute walk later, I arrived at my volunteer station on 1st avenue and 93rd street.
It was very quiet when I arrived but I was able to get a photo of one of the wheelchair participants coming down 1st avenue. I can’t really describe how inspiring it was to see these athletes during the race. Words wouldn’t do it justice.
After taking a few photos, I checked into my volunteer spot. I was promptly assigned to the Strawberry Banana team, complete with my red PowerBar shirt. The weather was great, but still a little windy, so I opted to throw on my shirt over my jacket.
The best PowerGel station! |
We went through these cases rather quickly! |
I’m official! |
We still had about an hour to kill before the elite women reached us so ‘Team Strawberry Banana” decided to have some fun. There was a DJ located behind us and he was really good! At some point he played “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” by Silento and we all broke out into the dance. Yes, I’m sick of that song, but something about it makes you want to just have fun. He kept playing awesome songs for a while..I recorded one of them:
Fun fun times 🙂 Pretty soon it was time to get in position to take photos of the elite women. Okay so let me start off by saying it’s hard to get photos of the elite athletes. They are running 5 minute miles and it’s like a bolt of lightning running past you. I did manage to get some decent photos:
Look at that stride! |
Next it was time for to get some photos of the elite men. There were two packs so I tried to get photos of both.
Look at that!! Freaking unreal!! |
I love how they are in sync |
…and still in sync |
I spy Meb!! |
Pretty soon it was time to get into position to hand out the gels. At first it was going well until I discovered that strawberry banana was the flavor of choice, lol. We were definitely busy! I also learned another important fact – no one, and I mean no one, likes the chocolate flavor. That was the first gel station so I think runners just automatically grabbed it without noticing the flavor. I either saw faces of horror from runners that ate the gel or once they saw it was chocolate, they tried to give the gel back to us. After a while it was pretty funny.
I saw a few cool things on the course as well:
- Spike Lee
- Alicia Keys
- Tiki Barber
- Wonder Woman
- Elvis
- Many, many, many hot guys. Like seriously, ridiculously hot men from across the globe. It was nice to have occasional eye-candy run by, lol.
The shirt, official lanyard, a volunteer pin and a power gel |
afastpacedlife says
I spectated the marathon in BK! Definitely fun. Thanks for volunteering. These events definitely can't happen without people like you.
I tried using the app to track my friends, but I found it useless because it didn't give me any updates until they crossed the finish line.
kookyrunner says
I heard that spectators in Brooklyn were the best!
The app did work for me, but you're right, I wish it would have given me alerts when my tracked runners started the race and hit certain checkpoints. I had to actually access the app to see where the runners were but some kind of sound alert would have been great!
Wendy Rivard says
I've considered volunteering for Chicago (when I'm not running it!). I'd love to be on the course. Altho when I was running it this year, I thought about how loud it is and wondered if all the noise gets to the volunteers?
kookyrunner says
You should totally do it! The noise level actually didn't both me because no one had a cowbell (I hate those things!). Also I think that I was so focused on getting runners what they needed that I probably blocked out some of the surrounding noise.
SD Mom says
What an amazing experience! I hope everyone thanked you!
kookyrunner says
So many runners thanked us which is always amazing to me! They are the ones doing all the work and I'm just standing there! LOL
Abby says
I really hope I get into NYC in 2016 so that I can meet you there. Fingers crossed.
kookyrunner says
I'll have my fingers and toes crossed!
Susie Suzlyfe says
ELVIS IS ALIVE???
kookyrunner says
LOL. This just made me laugh out loud!
Jenn13.1 says
This makes me want to volunteer at a race. And who doesn't like eye-candy when they're at a race? 😉 Strawberry Banana is my flavor of choice with the PowerGels so I completely understand. And now I know not to try the chocolate.
kookyrunner says
LoL it was so funny because I had no clue that so many people hated chocolate lol. Yes, the eye candy was ah-maz-ing! 🙂