Event: Sprint Triathlon (Volunteer)
Date: 6/25/06
Location: Naperville, IL

This race was like a shape in the fog, looming blurry and vague in the distant, hypothetical summer. Even as spring marched relentlessly on and the summer solstice arrived, mere days from the event, I still didn’t feel like it was here, or that it could be here. I was in denial it was time for the race because I couldn’t heal in time to run it.

At the last possible moment I caved to my doctor’s advice and the pain in my legs. In accepting that I couldn’t compete I signed up to volunteer, and received my information packet with just a day to spare. The volunteer coordinator was extraordinarily kind and, to accommodate my injury, assigned me to finish line timing. That meant I would be sitting the entire race, removing chips from racers’ ankles.

I was a little sad as I packed for the weekend, the lightest I’ll probably ever travel to a triathlon, without any use for the million little things a triathlete needs. Feeling not a little left out and sentimental, I tucked my specially designated, race-only obnoxious pink transition towel into the corner of my overnight bag.

For months I’ve suppressed a nagging fear that I wouldn’t care about racing this summer. Between the extended bout of bronchitis and multiple injuries and working longer hours I hadn’t been able to train enough, and I guess I subconsciously equated less training with less conviction. Picking up Swim Coach Marcy, I felt the first pang of real jealousy as I helped carry her race gear. The sight of her bike, alone in the back of my van, was especially hard. I was partially equipped – wearing my running shoes, transition bag full of swim gear for the hotel pool – but not having my bike made it real. I wasn’t racing.

From the moment I arrived it was clear SCM’s emotions were all over the map and I tried hard to be a calming presence and to ignore the voice in my head wondering what, exactly, I’d gotten myself into traveling with this woman I knew only from swim lessons. On the drive and right up until we went to sleep the night before, she vacillated wildly between irrational fear and sensible composure.

I can’t tell you how many times she said she didn’t want to do it and asked me to take her home. Then she’d be fine for a while, and would go back to how she just wanted to finish and was glad for the experience. The whole idea was that she was doing this to honor her mom, who’s been fighting cancer, so I had a hard time reconciling the fact that she came to me wanting to do this, with the way she acted when it came down to doing it. Dealing with her surprisingly negative reactions to damn near everything was especially hard for me because I’d have done anything to be in her place.

Her nonstop commentary faded to a distant drone as we neared Naperville High School and my attention focused on a sight I haven’t seen in nearly a year, the pre-race spectacle. Tears came to my eyes as I saw the rows of vehicles with bikes hanging off them every which way. I felt the anticipation as we entered the expo, caught the buzz, reveled in the aggregate energy of all those amazing women and began to feel like a triathlete again.

After taking SCM to get body-marked I got hit full force with the realization that my medical roll-over form had just gone into the mail. That meant my number was up on the board, waiting to be claimed. This tortured me the rest of the afternoon. Did I want to know?

In the end I decided it was less painful to not know what number I should have been blurring with sunscreen and imprinting on the hotel sheets, and I studiously avoided going near the list.

Through various stream-of-conscious ramblings on the drive I’d picked up on the fact that SCM hadn’t absorbed anything I’d told her over the last several months, even in response to direct questions, so I insisted she attend a course talk. While I waited on the outskirts of the group of first-timers, envying their collective thrill on the eve of becoming triathletes, it hit me that perhaps I could get the emcee to mention the Back of the Pack book project. After all – that was my primary mission for the weekend.

I caught him after the talk was over and explained the project. I’d even made up business cards to advertise the web page I built for the purpose, and he gladly took some. He travels around the country, announcing for Subaru sponsored triathlons, and he was so impressed with the book concept that he said he’ll mention it in course talks at other races! He said it was too bad I didn’t catch him in time to mention it that day, but honestly, his positive reception was enough for me.

SCM’s agitation peaked again when we left the expo and I drove her around the race course. The plan, obviously, was to calm her down by showing her there was nothing to be afraid of – it’s an absurdly flat course in an absurdly lovely city.

But when she wasn’t freaking out she was ignoring the course completely, chatting on the cell with her friends. I still don’t know if it helped her on race day, but it made me feel better for having made the effort, because I was starting to seriously doubt having agreed to come with her. After the doctor said I couldn’t race I was prepared to skip the trip and save the money, but she basically insisted I be there for her. I had no idea how hard she would make it to honor the commitment I’d made to guiding her through her first race.

By some miracle we managed to find the only pasta place in the area not overrun with athletes and had a leisurely dinner, at which time SCM confessed that part of the reason she was so scared was that she hadn’t trained enough on the bike. In asking her to elaborate on "not enough," she admitted that the one training ride I took her on was the one and only time in the last 2 years she’s been on a bike. It’s not like there was anything I could say to change things at that point so I just smiled and told her it would be fine if she took it slow and easy; the voices in my head went on a silent tirade at this newest relevation.

In a desperate bid to stop her incessant whining, I told her that when I get nervous about a race I remind myself how lucky I am to be able to do it at all. How there are so many people who aren't healthy enough or who can't afford to spend the money. I told her I regard being a triathlete as a priviledge, and I feel lucky all the time I'm able to do it when there are so many people in the world who have real, life-altering things to worry about. She thought about this, responded that I always seem to have a positive attitude about things and that I must be a better person than her because she can't see it that way, and went back to whining.

Back at the hotel we started to have some fun as she sorted through the race packets and asked me to teach her how to lay out her transition gear. For a little while she was calm and fun and funny, and I remembered why I liked her and why I’d agreed to do this. We goofed around and took silly pictures and had a few laughs before the inevitable going to bed early for a sleepless night.

Race day dawned dark and stormy, the cloudy skies and light rain hinting at the challenging day to come. We compared notes and found we had each dreamed goofy triathlon-themed dreams.

We arrived at the race site and were lucky to score the last parking spot in the lot closest to transition. I don’t know why that, as someone wishing to spend 2+ hours racing 16-odd miles that day, parking 200 yards closer should matter, but it felt like a good omen on that otherwise dreary morning. I was oblivious to the now-heavier rain as I stood outside transition, watching the morning madness with a heavy heart, relegated to spectator status while I waited for SCM to set up her gear.

I showed her where to get re-marked, where the “real” bathrooms were and where to line up for the swim. I felt bad leaving her because she had nearly 2 hours to wait for her wave start, but I was a tiny bit relieved that I had to go check in at the volunteer tent because her obvious lack of desire to race was getting to me. I’ve never seen anyone react so badly to something for which they volunteered. After leading her to the swim start I explained how she could find people in her wave, then I went off to find the volunteer tent and start my own adventure.

I stopped for a moment to take in the starting line. Aside from my own sadness in knowing this was as close as I'd get that day, I was concerned for the swimmers on that rainy 68 degree morning. This race is first-timer focused and the swim is in a small, usually warm body of water. Almost nobody had a wetsuit. Luckily the water was 10 degrees warmer than the air temp, so everyone was eager to dive in.

I got checked in and it took all of 14 seconds for them to “train” me on my volunteer position. (Sit here. Remove chip. Repeat 2000 times.) Having 45 minutes to spare, I was allowed to hobble back to the race start to watch the first couple of waves. I ended up chatting with some girls who knew the race, and we all expressed surprise that the elites were still in the water at 8 to 9 minutes because it’s usually closer to 7… then we laughed at ourselves when we realized we were criticizing them for being a minute slower during a storm on a course it took us 20 minutes to navigate on a good day.

(Sidebar: I checked the race results and SCM's unbelievable time was 12:00 for the .75K swim... and she said she'd been slow at the start until she could break away from the group. She may be a little tough to travel with, but boy am I glad she's my swim coach.)

The rainy day kept the usual crowd of supporters at home, so there were maybe a dozen of us at the finish line to welcome the race winner. Slick roads and all, she finished in a smokin’ 1:06. We screamed and yelled for all we were worth, and I hope for her sake the few of us there cheered loud enough to make up for the crowds that stayed home.

At first my job was easy – sit on a milk crate, and as the few early arrivals stagger in after having sprinted all out, you take their chip and Velcro it in its proper spot on one of the 20 numbered boards. There were about 6 of us working this part, so even though they said it would “get busy” I didn’t see how hard it could be. Being a back of the packer who is generally one of the last to finish, I had no concept of how many racers cross the line simultaneously in the middle of the morning. I learned soon enough.

I worked as fast as I could, and was surprised to find the pile of chips beside me had grown to ridiculous proportions in relation to the other volunteers. At one point it was nearly two feet high and 3 feet across. Maybe it was that I was sitting at the front of the chip station, maybe it was that I was the only one not wearing latex medical gloves (suggested by the mom of the tween girl volunteers because the racers “might be dirty.” I found this ridiculous).

But I think it was that I offered a smile, a kind word of explanation to the confused, congratulations to the breathless or support to the stumbling and distraught, while the other chip girls waited passively for the athletes to approach them. Plus, being not only a triathlete but also a veteran of this course made me the go-to person for questions the other volunteers hadn’t the faintest idea how to answer. Towards the end, I was put in charge of handling the finishers while the rest of the chip crew was put to the task of re-filing my enormous pile of spent chips.

Even with the nonstop crush of athletes, I tried hard to make eye contact, say hi and smile at every single woman. The range of emotions they displayed was fascinating and sometimes infectious. There were the super-fit ones, barely winded from the race, who struck cute little muscle-man poses with their foot up on the box, laughing while I took the chip. There were the ones exhausted beyond thinking, stumbling blindly past us, that we had to chase down and gently talk to them so they understood what we needed, then let them lean on our shoulder while we bent to take their chip. There were the ones who apologized that we had to touch them to remove the chip, as if sand and sweat and rainwater were objectionable. There were the ones who thanked us for being at ground level to remove it because they were temporarily incapable of bending over. There were the ones who made bawdy comments like “get that fucker off me!” because for them chip removal is a symbolic gesture of completion.

The ones who stood out most vividly were the ones who choked back tears, surprised, I think, at their own reaction to finishing. I deeply understood how they felt - I cried upon finishing the Danskin last summer, a battle not to quit that changed so many things about me and how I perceive the sport.

But the ones who touched me most were the ones who remembered me from last year. Who stopped their own post-race celebrations to ask why I wasn’t out there with them, to offer blessings and encouragement when they learned of my injury, and to make promises to see me on the course next year.

At some point the heavens opened up and even our tent became pointless. I was soaked, the racers were soaked, the towels they were offered at the finish line were soaked. But we didn’t have time to worry about it because they just kept coming, sometimes 3 and 4 deep, offering me their dripping limbs, soaked chip straps hiding under soaked socks. I’d been feeling guilty about sitting under the shelter of a tent all morning, and was happy to pay this small penance for failing to suffer beside them, to endure the tiniest bit of what the racers fought for all those miles.

Somewhere in the crush of racers SCM crossed the line in a respectable 2:02. She was oddly emotionless, which I mistook for exhaustion. I broke away from chip duty long enough to have our picture taken, then gave her my keys so she could load her gear while I finished my job.

Eventually the flood of finishers dried to a trickle and my enormous pile of spent chips was transformed back into ordered Velcro rows. I had nothing left to do, there were only 3 racers left on the course and the other volunteers were long gone, but after an hour SCM still hadn’t returned from the car. I sat around chatting with the event crew, and ended up meeting race spokeswoman and former pro triathlete Colleen Cannon. She was incredibly gracious, chatted with me for a while, and even got someone to take our picture together. (Unfortunately, the gentleman wielding my camera was apparently fuzzy on the concept of auto-focus, and the picture turned out exactly that.) It turns out she’s been wanting to start a blog and was excited to learn about podcasts, a new concept to her but one which she is eager to adopt, so she asked me a lot of questions about those things. I have a feeling the tri community will be hearing more from her in the near future.

SCM finally reappeared, but not before the event staff in charge of the timing crew pulled me aside to say what a great job I’d done. I told them I hoped when I saw them next year I’d be on the other side of things.

On the walk to the van SCM would not stop moaning about her time. She didn’t have an official time yet, but had checked my watch when she finished and knew it was just over 2 hours. I reminded her that it was her first race, she’d barely trained and had said all along she just wanted to finish. It was at this point she admitted she’d secretly hoped to finish in under 2 hours.

She really wouldn’t let it go and I finally lost my patience with her whiny nonsense. I told her she has no right to complain about that time when she herself admits she didn’t train. I told her that she needs to be careful who she says that sort of thing in front of because it could hurt a lot of people's feelings. I told her she needs to think about people like me, who, had I been able to train my ass off for six months, without illness or injury, would have been aiming for the 2 hour mark as the ultimate accomplishment.

She mumbled something about it still being a disappointing time for her and then finally, finally, let it go.

Even though I left the race soaked, exhausted, infuriated with SCM and with a brand new nagging pain in my low back that would soon become a four-alarm fire and hang around for more than a week, I still felt like the trip was absolutely worth it. I renewed my commitment to the sport and am very much looking forward to volunteering at Ironman Wisconsin in September.

Michelle Wood
June 2006