Volunteer, Volunteer! {Walk-A-Thon and Army Ten Miler}

Sorry for the disappearing act! I definitely had hopes of blogging this weekend but I was super busy! Hey, life happens and its definitely better to live in the moment than to feel pressure to blog about it immediately! Besides, being busy means that I am not moping around the house all day so that’s a positive!

So, let’s catch up a little bit, shall we?

On Friday, after my workout, I drove an hour and a half to Baltimore to check out a pair (and subsequently purchase) a pair of running shoes. The store I went to (Falls Road Running Store) was the only store within a two-hour radius that sold them! I’ll discuss the shoes and the visit more in a future post, but here’s a sneak peak. Any guesses as to what shoes I bought?

On Saturday, I was up a the not-so-bright and early time of 5:40am to get ready to help out at a fundraiser Walk-a-Thon at my cousin’s school.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day outside with the cooler temperatures, sunny skies, and the fall foliage in its full beauty. I spent the morning setting up for the event, checking in participants, and helping during the one mile fun run. It was awesome to see so many families out walking and enjoying the morning.

After spending the majority of the morning and early afternoon at the Walk-a-Thon, the remainder of the day was spent running errands and doing some typing work for my aunt before calling it an early night at 9!

Flash forward to this morning where I had another early wakeup call (4am) so I could go volunteer at the Army Ten Miler! This is a race that I really want to do but it was not in the cards for me this year. Instead, I did the next best thing by still getting the race day experience, but in a volunteer capacity.

The Metro opened up early at 5am and I needed to be on the first train in order to make it to the Pentagon by 6 for my check-in. Luckily I had no issues getting up and made it to the train in plenty of time.

I made it to the check-in tent shortly after 6, picked up my volunteer t-shirt and vest. My assignment was “roaming information volunteer” which basically meant that I walked around the finish and answered any questions people had.

I ended up linking up with two other women who had the same job and we walked around together. They were really sweet and nice to talk to. At first, we didn’t have a lot of information to give to people (we were never briefed/ given any information) but we eventually got the hang of it.

For the first two hours before the race, we did not have much to do since all the runners were at the start line so we walked around the Hooah Tent area to familiarize ourselves with the tents.

We were also able to see some of the pre-race festivities in the sky…

and watch the waves start the race. I tried to spot some bloggers/ friends who I knew were running the race but it was all a huge blur. We did spot Captain America though!

Once all the runners went past us, it was back to work, sporting our “stylish” volunteer vests and “hater” shades.

We walked around for a couple of hours answering questions, guiding runners to the trolley’s, and assisting in any way we could. I was even able to finally spot Sierra!

I look like a goober but she looks awesome for just running 10 miles, huh? I’m so proud of her! She did fantastic and I can’t wait to read her recap and hang out with her when I get back from my mini-vacation next week.

After seeing Sierra, I checked out of my volunteer shift and hopped on to the Metro to the National Mall to get a few miles in. (This was actually the second time this week I ran in DC, which is always nice) I’m still doing a walk/ run ratio (20 minute run, 2 minute walk, 10 minute run) but I’m almost at full running. I’m having some pain again, but I am trying out new shoes so I’ll have a report soon about my running. I ran 3.5 miles…not quite 10 like 30,000+ runners did today, but I’ll get there.

After my run, I hopped back on the Metro and drove back to my aunt’s house where I caught up on work/ did grad school application/ did some apartment hunting.

A busy, busy weekend, but also a very fun weekend. I have been feeling very stressed out lately, but it is weekends like this that make me so appreciative of the fact that I am living up in this area. This is only the beginning of a great adventure.

Have you ever volunteered at a race? How was your experience?