February 7, 2015: Volunteering at the ATC Hearts and Soles 5K

This morning, the Atlanta Track Club hosted one of their free races for members: the Hearts and Soles 5K, on and around the Panthersville campus of Georgia Perimeter College.  I ran this 5K last year with a time of 26:14. 

Hearts and Soles 5K, Feb 8 2014

But right now, I'm focusing on preparing for the Publix Georgia Half Marathon on March 22.  I'm concerned that running a 5K as fast as possible will prevent me from doing a long run in the same weekend, and I want to prepare myself as well as possible so that I will have a better experience in my next half-marathon.  So I thought, I can still be a part of the event if I serve as a volunteer, which will save my legs to do the scheduled long run later in the day.  Several of the other bloggers that I've followed also volunteer at a few races each year, so I decided to follow their example.  Atlanta Track Club events are always well-organized, so I figured that an ATC race would be a good venue to volunteer for the first time.

One of the perks of volunteering is great parking, since the volunteers must arrive before the runners.  I had received an e-mail earlier in the week assigning me as a course monitor, which was what I had hoped for, so that I could see all of the runners including the leaders.  As a middle-of-the-pack runner, I miss out on watching the speedsters, so as a course monitor I would be able to watch all of the runners from start-to-finish. 

Bonnie decided to run the race, so we both arrived early, between 6:15 and 6:30 am.  The temperature was right around the freezing point, but the gift for volunteers was a pair of running gloves - perfect!  ATC also provided hot coffee for the volunteers, and even some donut holes (and I managed to stop with just one).  As I had hoped, things were indeed very well organized.  Each course monitor was issued a green visibility vest.  Ray, an experienced volunteer chief, gave each of us very clear instructions on locations and what course monitors at the various locations would need to watch for.  As I had run the race last year, I also knew the route, which was at a key turn and also near the top of the only hill in the race.  This would be an out-and-back route, so we would see every runner twice. 

Ray Ganga, our volunteer crew chief. 

Shortly before Bonnie took this photo, I had told her the story
of my father's advice when I first began driving lessons:
"Speed kills."

There were three other volunteers with me at the turn, along with a policewoman to coordinate the road closure, right before the start.  Although the main race was to begin at 8:00 am, a wheelchair racer would begin at 7:45 am.  We had the cones set out shortly before he started.  With a police escort in front of him, he was moving pretty quickly until he got to the very top of the hill, and when I think back on it, he probably had to slow quite a bit in order to make the turn, since there isn't a steering mechanism on a racing wheelchair.  He had a police escort and so that was a good dry run for our corner before the mass of runners began their race. 

I was wondering if we would be able to hear the airhorn from our station, approximately half a mile from the start, but the sound didn't travel up the hill.  However the policewoman was receiving reports from other locations on the race route, and so we could hear through her radio when the race had began.  The first wave suddenly appeared down the road as a big pack, rolling steadily in our direction.  We made sure that the cones were oriented as well as possible, as the racers would have to pare down from two lanes to one lane upon making our turn.  Indeed Ray had been a bit concerned about that ahead of time.  Fortunately there was just enough distance between the start and our turn so that the runners were spaced out far enough by the time they reached the turn, and the lane compression wasn't too difficult to manage.  Indeed it was very important that all runners stayed in the right lane, because before long, the wheelchair racer was returning from the opposite direction.  I guess I was expecting that the lead runners would be moving a little faster, but didn't have a good way of estimating speed, and they were running uphill coming in our direction.  Afterwards I calculated that the winner had maintained an average speed of just under 12 mph.  (For comparison, my own PR time in the 5K is at slightly better than 7 mph average speed.)

Wave A has started!

Wave A began to peter out, just as we saw wave B roll up the hill.  A few minutes later, wave C appeared, and I could definitely see some thinning before the final wave D came by.  As I had hoped, I was able to recognize a few runners that I had met at other ATC races and cheer them on my name, including my lovely wife as she passed my turn.  Shortly after the last runners made it past our turn, we heard over the radio that the lead runner was passing the softball field.  I wasn't quite sure where that was on the race route, but we began looking ahead along the race route.  After a few more minutes, the blue lights of the police car appeared at the top of the hill, followed by the first runner.  We started cheering as he approached, and now he was definitely moving quickly, perhaps accelerating as he crested the hill and began moving downhill.  He had at least a 100 yard lead on the second runner, and a total of four more runners passed in quick succession.  After a short break, a slowly increasing stream of runners steadily approached, including the lead woman runner, within the first twenty runners.  I sneaked a look at my watch and it was 8:14 am.  We noticed that every runner in this elite group was cutting the corner incredibly close to the curb, to save every possible fraction of a second.  I became concerned that some pine straw at the corner might be slippery, so a couple of volunteers dashed out to put a few cones on top of the straw. 

 

Today's winners, in 16:08 and 17:44 respectively

As the remaining runners passed our station, we would cheer every time a new group crested the hill.  We had a great spot for cheering because we could truthfully tell them that it was all downhill from here.  More than a few runners seemed really happy to hear that, and some of them probably heard it a couple of seconds before they made the turn and could see indeed that the road was heading downhill.  Many walkers began running again once they made the turn.  The only problem emerged later in the hour, as the faster runners ran back along the route in their cool-down run, crossing the later runners at our turn.  We tried our best to warn the cool-down runners and remind them to keep to the right, out of the way of their fellow runners. 

Of course the average pace of the runners slowed over the hour that we were working the turn, but I was able to reflect on my progress over the past two years.  Two years ago, I would definitely not have been in the middle of the pack.  I'm pretty sure that I could have walked 3.1 miles in an hour, but I'm also certain that I would have been quite tired.  So it was great to see everyone working on their own fitness regardless of their position in the race.  One of my favorite moments of the morning was seeing the oldest participant pass our turn on the return leg, at around 9 am.  He's 88 years old and a regular at ATC events.  Every time I see him, I remember the main reason that I'm running: it's to give myself a better level of fitness, hopefully so that I might age as gracefully and healthily as the oldest participants in today's race. 

Our day was done as the truck came up the road to pick up the cones along the route.  I jogged back toward the finish area but trying not to get in the way of the last finishers.  

And in addition to enjoying my experience as an ATC race volunteer, I also had a great long run a few hours later, covering the 13.1 miles of the Publix Georgia Half Marathon route starting and ending at mile 9, at Piedmont Park.  Although I will be running races for the next two weekends, beginning with the Spring Tune-Up 15K next Saturday, I plan to volunteer again soon, probably for the Atlanta Women's 5K on the last Saturday in March.