Walking the wire

Yesterday I walked into the running store expecting a mountain of work ahead of me.  My expectations were met.  I had a pile of paper registrations to get entered into the system and three pages of names of people that signed up online yesterday and picked up their packet the same day.  Each person that does this requires me to do a manual transfer of their bib number so everything stays in synch.

Managing the mix of pre-registered, walk ins, and late online sign ups requires some significant juggling of numbers and very carefully thought out steps.  The addition of two additional free events for this race further muddy the process.

I did non-stop data work for more than 90 minutes as a steady stream of race participants came in to pick up their race bib and event shirt. As always I struggled with legibility with participants scribbling on forms with no consideration that someone else needs to actually be able to read them.  I used to get really bent out of shape about this as one of the volunteer responsibilities is to make sure any form handed to them is clearly legible and complete.  Eventually I realized that I could repeat this until I lost my voice and I will still get chicken scratch, so now if someone hands me an entry with garbage writing I just take my best guess as to what is is.  If it’s wrong, tough shit, learn how to write or sign up online where penmanship is not required.

Something else I have come to realize is that most people are procrastinators at heart.  Despite various efforts over the years to get people to sign up early for events which allows better and more accurate event planning, the majority of the runners still will wait until the week before an event to sign up, despite it being the most expensive time to do so.  Much like crappy paper entries, I stopped fighting the trend.  Let people sign up late, pay the max rate, and enjoy your inflated bottom line.

I finally got caught up just as packet pick up was ending.  We had a good number of people pick up early on day one, somewhere around 900 bibs were handed out.  When I got home Cindy could see the all too familiar invisible weight strapped across my shoulders as I was constantly going through mental checklists and scenarios.  My eyes felt like they were encased in sand. I was hoping for a good night sleep last night to keep me fresh.  Unfortunately I woke up numerous times with my mind immediately getting busy when I did, making it difficult to fall back asleep.

My reward for all that work will be an even more intense day today where the hard core procrastinators will flock in, happy to hand over $30 to be mired in a sea of humanity tomorrow morning.  Despite the shit I still need to step through I still feel much better about things this year as it’s all part of the “last time I have to do…” scenario that will be repeating itself over the next two months.

After the race is in the rear view mirror Cindy has a nice Thanksgiving dinner planned with her family and some friends.  As usual she is putting an unbelievable amount of thought and planning into the occasion.  The rest of the 4 day weekend will have chores, xmas decoration work, exercise, shopping, and maybe, just maybe, some time to relax.