Water Stop

Once again my family and friends volunteered for the water stop at Johnny's Runnin' of the Green.  The race is a 5 miler that takes place before the St. Patrick's Day parade.  Incase you are wondering strongly dislike the parade and do not consider an endless stream of garbage trucks a parade in addition to all the fire trucks.  The Irish Dancers are ok though... the rest not so much.  Anyways, we arrived just after the water buffalo, which is a large tank of water that the water authority brings.

We started filling cups right away and filled three tables this year instead of our usual two.  It was quite chilly but at least ice wasn't forming in the cup this year.  Mom did her thing making sure we were all decorated with hats and beads to make it festive for the runners.  We do a lot of cheering when they run by with the "good job, keep it up and halfway."  Taking turns filling the cups the rest of us munched on cookies and other goodies plus we had chocolate milk.

 Once the tables were ready I gave a quick briefing on how to hand off the cups to the runners.  Pinch it and have the cup dangle or open palm with the cup sitting there for them to grab.  They are going to most likely make eye contact with you and grab the cup to go.  Having a crazy rush in the middle of the race we assigned fillers this year instead of waiting for the supply to get low and then filling.  It worked out great.

 The police officer that was near us was kind enough to take a group photo of us while we waited for the runners to start coming.  He was a very nice man, as were the other officers that cleared the roads for the runners as they do at so many races.

I am pretty sure we set a record for set up, race and clean up this year.  We had the ground cleared of cups by the last few runners and packed it up just before it started to rain.  This is such a fun tradition that my mom started with family and friends.  We have even converted a few of my running pals to working the water stop instead of running.  Here's to next year being sunny and nice!