600

So my first volunteer experience turned out pretty good.  I had a touch of nerves at first, staring at the map hoping that it would tell me what to do, but came away with a good experience.  A few notes from the event:

-I need to drink coffee next time
-Teenage girls, who are forced to volunteer, are not great at following instructions
-No one looks happy while competing
-Keep note of the course closure times
-I put 105 miles on my car...

Throughout the bike portion of the race I did my job of making sure volunteers were in their spots and no cyclists needed help.  I gave all the volunteers my phone number and told them their duties: A. tell the runners where to go with a bright orange flag and B. Call me if anything happens.  I stopped a couple of times for stopped cyclists but was waved off both times.  One was for a woman with a broken clip and another just stopped to readjust.  A couple hours after the race start there were two cyclists left but I noticed something a bit off.  The police were leaving their posts.  The volunteers then left too..

That's not good.

I called the coordinator and they quickly got the police back out for the two remaining riders.  They were about a mile from the dismount.  One of the two was the cyclist with the broken clip.  She couldn't get up hills because her feet had no traction on the clips.  I offered to help or take her and her bike back but she declined.  This isn't surprising.  Regardless of circumstances she was set on finishing.

Arriving back at the YMCA I stood and watched the award ceremony, while waiting for the volunteer coordinator.  During the ceremony the swim captain came up and said something along the lines of "I wonder if that cyclist who got hit by the car is ok."  WHAT?!?  An 80+ year old cyclist got hit by someone blowing through a light.  The car clipped the back tire of the bike and he was fine, but due to his age was taken to the hospital for observation.  The same intersection had three teenage girls with my phone number (that doesn't sound creepy at all).  Not once did they contact me.  There were police there to apprehend the idiot driver though.  Score one for the good guys.

Regardless of someone getting struck on the course I was told I did a great job.  I didn't believe it but she followed it up saying she wanted me to captain again and said she wouldn't tell someone they did a good job if they didn't.  Signed up for the May 18th tri as bike captain again.

The Chasing Chicken triathlon had a the racers actually chasing a chicken..

Now 600.  It has nothing to do with bike captaining a race.  It's a countdown.

When I got back from the race my wife went and laid down because she wasn't feeling good.  This continued to Monday and I had to stay home from work.  A nasty stomach bug worked its way into our home.  I was bored Monday so I did random searches online.  I've mentioned this in the last couple years but I had this crazy plan to complete an Ironman by the time I was 30.   I made this "bucket list" type goal before I was even running.  Wouldn't you guess it but searching for November 29, 2015 told me I had 600 days till my 30th birthday!  Imagine the motivation and excitement that flowed through my veins?

The motivation flow ran dry pretty quick because I came down with the same stomach bug...

Today is 595 days and I'm getting focused.  That 140.6 will be completed.  I've got a long way to go but I'm going to start equipping myself, physically.  By that I mean getting better at swimming.  Still feeling like rubbish about my abilities.  I would sign up for one today if I had confidence in it but that'll come with practice and time.

On the social front, my family actually left our house last night to talk to other human beings!  GASP!  We made our way out to the mighty James river for an open water Richmond Triathlon Club "swim and social".  I was a spectator of the swimming and phew was the current going.  A good 7 to 10 people were swimming in place.  Call it an aquamill (don't call it that).  One of the Thursday trail running Dad's, Joe, came with his wife and kids.  While he was killing it on the swim we played frisbee, cleaned up boo boos, and I opened beer bottles for people without bottle openers (using the side of a picnic table).  After my sober foot was drenched with Sam Adams I had some good tri talk.  Heart rates, race plans, and much more.  It's downright therapeutic talking about endurance sports.  Aimee tuned this conversation out faster than I tune out camera specs.

In other news, I had my YMCA interview on Thursday.  Going for a part time member services position.  I felt like I did extremely well except one minor mistake... I'll elaborate on that in my next post.

Today I'm going to get some miles in on my Nikes.  Maybe 6 to 8.  HOF 13.1 in two weeks in Canton!

Have a great weekend everyone!