Course Marshal

Running in Next week's AFC Half Marathon - *tangent warning* AFC stands for America's Finest City, San Diego, California. A moniker I stand behind 100%. Don't believe me? google it, the internet doesn't lie. *end tangent* - came with a prerequisite. Having been sold out months ago, my entrance required me to volunteer at the San Diego Track Club's 56th Balboa 8 & 3 Miler (two races). No problem, I've found that I really enjoy volunteering.

The wife and I arrived 30 minutes before the race start this morning. She registered for the 8 mile race and I received my assignment: "Course Marshal 6." Whoa, this sounded serious. Unlike my previous stints volunteering pouring water and selling $1 pace bands, effing this up would have a consequence.

Course Marshal 6 was placed on the corner of Juniper and Balboa Drive, so off I went.

From the course map excerpt above, you can see I was located 1.5 miles from the start of the 8 and 3 miler and approximately 7.25 from the finish of the 8 (the 3 mile race did not come back around my way). My CM6 instructions were to 'instruct the runners to continue on Balboa Drive.' As easy as they seemed, I still read my instructions over and over just to make sure I didn't miss anything and with a good 20 minutes before I had a lot of time to think about my course marshaling strategy.

Would I use percision arm movements, like military ground crew readying a jet for takeoff?

Or maybe the not so percise windmill motion of a 3rd Base Coach, waving his runner home??

Yes folks, this is actually the kind of crap that runs through my mind. And as the leaders made the left turn from the bridge onto Balboa Drive, I saw that they were being paced/lead by a mountain bicyclist. Awesome, I don't have to tell anyone where to go. The leaders follow the guy on the bike and everyone else follows the runner in front of them. My knowledge of the course, would only be necessary when there was a big enough gap between runners. So now I was bored.

Mixing up my applause w/ "good job runners", "nice work ladies" and very brief conversations with running friends from the track club and the wifey, I found volunteering very rewarding towards the end of the race. Where the runners started thanking me for being out there on the course and you could tell they truly appreciated my 'good job runners.'

Congrats to all the runners and especially the wifey!

***

Managed to get in a 90 minute trainer ride and a 30 minute treadmill run this weekend. Feeling good. Less than 1 week away from the AFC Half.