sm100 volunteer report-final

Ok, this is running kinda long for a simple volunteer report. Let me see if I can finish it out.

Sunday-Race Day
I ended up getting woken up from the "wake up" truck. It wasn’t real hard. I couldn’t sleep worth crap. Eveything in the tent felt damp and sticky. OOOh! I walked down to the pavillion to check out the pre-race prepping. I had bought my own coffee so didn’t evan try to snarf up any they had made. I heard there were 350 racing. The final crowd didn’t look as large as I expected. The beginning was kinda anit-climatic. No gun, no horn. Just Chris the promoter saying go. They racers were paced by a motorcycle the first few miles on the public roads.

I talked with fellow volunteer james-vesscus for a while than went back up to camp gorilla to finish getting my caffine shots. I had no real plans until 1:00, when I was due back in the kitchen. I wanted to follow the race course and see what some of the single track looked like. I got the bike ready and took off. I wasn’t real sure which way it ran, but assumed they had signage out for the racers. I found the first 2 signs that led to rt.370(?). I rode down 370 for about 5 miles until I finally got it through my thick head that I’d missed a turn. Maybe they already started taking down some of the signs? Backtracked and saw some signs for a lake. Hell, nothing better to do. That ended up going into the GW park area and the race course ran through there. Cool. I can watch the racers for a while. Root them on and see how much pain their in this far into the race. According to a marshal I met this was between 25-30 miles into the race. Just shy of checkpoint 2. Most of them were still looking fresh. My buddy Dennis happened to go by while I was watching. He was still looking good too.

Went back to camp gorilla, did some sugar loading, then rode the last 3 miles of the course. This was easy to find as it rolled right past my camp. The first mile or more was up hill. As the racers would be coming the oppisite way, this was good for them. There was a cool view from the top of climb. I wished I had bought the camera now. Came back down, looked at the map of the race course at the pavillion and tried to figured were I had messed up trying to follow the beginning of the course. Still wasn’t sure, but thought maybe I hadn’t went far enough the first time. So I tried it again. Another rider was leaving the camp ground and he was about 300yds ahead of me. I kept following him, trying to catch up. Maybe he knew where I was messing up at. Finally, after 8 miles he stopped and waited for me to come up to him. He was in no better shape than me. He had started in the race that morning but had DNF’d after 2 hours. He was fighting a cold. He was trying to find his way to checkpoint 4 to meet up with some buddies. He was as lost as me. We ended up turning around and heading back to the grounds and had a nice talk on the way back. I think he ended up getting his car and finding the checkpoint.

It was time for my kitchen duty now. A quick change of clothes and some re-hydration and I was back in the kitchen. Tonights was going to be hamburgers, hotdogs, and french fries. The first few hours I ran around helping where I was needed then I finally got attached to a grill and became a permanent hamburger fryer. Being the new guy, I got stuck with the "retarded" or should I say heat challenged grill. Things were pretty mellow until about 6:00. Than the rush started. I now know what it feels like to work fast food during lunch hour. The hamburgers were running out and we were trying our damnest to get them out. I felt kinda bad for the racers. You finish up a 100 mile race than gotta wait 15 minutes in the food line. The next 3 hours were just a blur of grilling up burgers. Dennis came over after he finished the race and tried to talk to me while I was cooking but it was kinda hard trying to talk and grill burgers. Gwadzilla tried to give me a new nickname, "gorilla on a grill". It better not stick.

Shit finally slowed way up about 9:30. Still grilling, but we had caught up and could relax a little. I finally called it quits at 10:30. I had been going since I got there and Anne said I was done. I warned her. I was going to finally get a beer and after that I wouldn’t be any good to anyone. But she insisted.

Another riding buddy I hadn’t seen in a long time Jason showed up with his wife to pickup Dennis. He was coming back from the hospital after getting a nasty cut on his knee during the race. He’s in really good shape. Got the cut at 50 some miles. That would have been just the excuse I would have used to bail. Good job man.

By now I’m on my 4th beer and my head is swimming. God, I can’t hold beer! I call it a night and make my way back to camp.

I did learn a small lession from last night. I bought my cell phone with me and used the light from it to help me make it back in the dark. Pretty pathetic.

I woke up at 5:30 the next morning and broke camp. BTW I had one helluva headache from that beer.


Barring something catostrophic, like this years knee injury. I will be racing next year.

I want to add that the racers are cool as shit in making you feel appreciated. I had quite a few come up and tell me how much they appreciated the work we were putting in and how good the food was.

I did get a free shirt outta the deal. They evan managed to dig up a 2XL so it actually fits.

Seeya