Spartan Sprint Race Volunteering Recap!

Note: I did run the race with my awesome boyfriend. The only nickname he has is the Ninja, so that is what I will be calling him. FYI he is called that because he is so light on his feet.

Volunteering!

So for people who haven't ever volunteered for race before, sometimes you get to run the race for free if you so wish and you always get the great feeling of cheering on other people as they race.

So the Ninja and I  volunteered for the shorter shift, 6 hours, on Saturday since we were racing the next day. Originally we were going to help out in the registration tent, but they needed us more at the obstacles on the course.

 We ended up at the finish line right after the final mud pit where the wall of fire was. It was an amazing and rewarding experience. The wall of fire is a two foot tall pile of wood that is on fire. The race participates jump over the wall of fire then fight three gladiators in the gladiator pit then they cross the finish line!

Cheering and helping people cross the wall of fire was empowering. There were people who had been on the course for more than 7 hours crossing the finish line in tears and smiling. I thought that I would include some tips for people interested in volunteering.

Tips

• Wear sunscreen if you are going to be in the sun
• Wear sunglasses
• Bring a noise makers, kettle bell, or be prepared to clap and cheer 
• Wear comfortable shoes (Or in my case the shoes I was racing in since they got muddy) 
• Bring water and some food
• Bring a good ATTITUDE! You are cheering on these people and being supportive really makes a difference in someone's race.
• Be prepared to offer assistance, especially in an obstacle race. Sometimes people can't make it through an obstacle without a helping hand, so just being there to help when necessary is a good thing to know ahead of time
• Have fun!

The race recap should be up sometime tomorrow! Have you every volunteered for a race? Did you like it?

Hot Chocolate 15k/5k Expo and Volunteering Recap & Giveaway Winner!

Volunteering at the Hot Chocolate 15k/5k Prep

Saturday morning Lisa and I reported to Turner Field to help with preparations for the race! The first thing that happened when we got to the volunteer site was get our AWESOME sweatshirts that say "Will Volunteer for Chocolate," and at 20 degrees when we got there we sure did need the extra layers!

Our job as volunteers was to assemble the finishers mugs. Each mug had to have a bag of pretzels, wafers, a rice crispy treat, and a hand sanitizer wipe. We also had to make about 20,000 of these! There were about 50 volunteers there during our shift and we broke into smaller groups and made an assembly line putting the finishers cups! This lasted about 5 hours and then we were off to the expo!

The Expo!

The race expo was located at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, and for those who haven't been there it is HUGE! This was our first expo which was really exciting, so we spent a few hours there. 

The expo was one large room in the World Congress Center filled with booths for other races and companies like Skirt Sport. For some reason we didn't think that there would be booths with clothes and shoes so we did not expect to go and spend money! There were some amazing deals there on our favorite running gear, like 50% off shoes, Skirt Sport clothes, Sweaty Bands headbands, ect. So we browsed and walked around the expo looking at all of the items that we wanted but didn't buy since we weren't expecting to spend money. 

As you can image that only lasted so long. Lisa and I purchased race entries to the 80's Rad Retro Run, which is on May 10 (the day after my 21st birthday!). The expo also had music, chocolate covered marshmallows, and hot chocolate of course!

Below is the goodie bag that we got with packet pickup. I also got a free coffee mug (with a coupon from another blogger when I signed up)

Giveaway Winner

The winner of the giveaway is Tara! Tara if you would send us an email with your information to claim your prize, it will be on its way to you soon!

The race recap will be up soon so be sure to check back for that! (The blog post after that will have a giveaway too!)

Color in Motion 5k Race Recap and Giveaway Winner!

My race day attire

Race Prep

Wow the week has just flown by! So last week Lisa and I started to get all of the last minute prep done for the 5k race on Saturday. So we finally picked out what we were both wearing on Friday night. I decided on wearing an older pair of cheap shorts and the race t-shirt. I also brought a bandanna and my sunglasses. I ended up not using the sunglasses because it was really foggy and overcast but I LOVED the bandanna. I pulled it up to protect my face throughout the race.

Cleaning Supplies

I also brought a lot of things to help clean up after the race that came in really helpful. I brought two towels, one to cover my car seats on the way back home and one to use to wipe off the color powder. I also brought wipes, you can use baby wipes, active wipes, or face wipes (what I used because I had them on hand). Other than that I also brought a clean change of clothes and a grocery bag to put my dirty clothes.  With all of this prepped it was easy to contain the color powder to a small area that was easy to clean up.


Race Day!
So race day rolled around and we left our side of town to drive an hour to where the race location was at 6 that morning. Yup you read that right we left at 6 for a race that started at 9. We REALLY didn't want to be late and I worry a lot. IT worked out well because we stopped off at a CVS once we were close so that we could get a disposable camera to take some race pictures with.

Here we are waiting for the race to start

Once we got to the race location we started getting ready and preparing to get to the starting line. Since we were there so early we actually got to talk to other runners there. There was a great variety of runners out: people like us who were running their first race, high school track runners, people who had run marathons, and many more.

So we started lining up at 8:45 or so. The race administrators had musics going and everyone was just dancing waiting for the race to start. We ended up starting closer to 9:30 as opposed to 9 but it wasn't a big deal. At the starting line the powder started coming out and everyone was pretty covered in colored cornstarch before the race even started.

Pre and Post race pictures of me

Once the race started we just started running. Now here is the ting that I haven't told you yet, the race was on a TRAIL! Nowhere was this mentioned in the information about the race, thus Lisa and I were just training on pavement. That was surprising to say the least. We took it in stride and just kept on going. It was really refreshing to be in the "wilderness" and the view was great.

There were color stations located at every kilometer where the volunteers had buckets, literally buckets of a colored powder to throw at the runners as they pass the area. The volunteers had so much energy and everyone was just laughing and running. As first races go it was pretty amazing.

Pre and Post race pictures of Lisa

At the end of the race there was a "color party" with music and lots of cornstarch powder. As soon as the finish line was in sight and we were approaching it, I of course with my luck ended up falling in a small ditch. Yea I know, I am really klutzy. It is kinda ironic that I made it through a course with hills, sand, small rocks, and uneven ground but I fall in a small ditch/divot in the ground in sight of the finish line.  Thankfully all that happened was a small scrapped knee.

The race was such an amazing experience and I cannot wait until the Hot Chocolate 5k in January!



Giveaway Winner!!
So this is the moment you have all been waiting for! The winner of the Far End Gear Brite Buds is . . . Maryalicia Verdecchia! Maryalicia can you send us an email with your information and we will send you your prize! Thank you everyone for participating in our first giveaway, and we look forward to having our next one soon.

One Week Until Race Day!

There is officially one week exactly until our FIRST race! I can't believe that next weekend we will have finished our first 5k. So thought the week we will be doing all of out last minute prepping. So far we both have our clothes for the race picked out. Unfortunately we can't wear any of our nice workout gear like my compression socks or our nice activewear shorts or tops since it is a color run and we don't want to stain our nice gear.


Lisa and I haven't been working out together recently since our schedules haven't really synced up. Lisa has been walking on the treadmill and I was walking on our local trails. Due to my unfortunate spill off the ladder on Thursday I didn't workout on Thursday or Friday! It has been awful. I am hoping to take it easy and do some yoga tomorrow and get back to running on Monday though.

Other than our clothes, we will be getting all of our accessories together later this week (maybe a blog post to come about what we will bring!)


On the note of gear. Last week I won a pair of Far End Gear's Brite Buds Reflective earphones. Lisa and I both tried out the pair that I won and we LOVE them. With daylight savings time last weekend our workouts tend to happen after dark more and more. When running in the dark it is really important to have multiple points of reflective gear so that a person is more recognizable to drivers.I usually just run with a blinking LED attached to my shirt but now I have some earbuds to go with that. The ear phones have great quality sound to boot. To celebrate our first race we bought a pair to giveaway! This will be our first giveaway so we hope everyone enjoys it. We will pick a winner after our race on Saturday and post the winner on our blog next week.



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