Volunteering at the 2009 Arizona Ironman - First shift

The 2009 Arizona Ironman was held on November 22 this year.

I volunteered to work in the transition area, handling Gear Bags

GEAR BAGS: Like Bikes, athletes are required to rack their gear in separate bags the day before the race. These bags will be checked in the day before the race as well as race day retrieval and assistance to the athletes with these transitions. Volunteers will help get athlete bags and help re-rack the bags so the athlete can retrieve it post-race.

All the gear bags, lined up and ready for racers

I signed up and worked three separate shifts on race day:

7am - 9:30am

The gear bags transition area is a mad house during the morning swim-to-bike transition. I specifically picked this time slot because I wanted a high energy, exciting volunteer job.

The race starts at 7am, and the transition area is right next to the swim start. So all the volunteers in the transition area walked over to the swim start to watch the start of the race. If you've never seen the start of an Ironman, it's definitely something to put on your to-do list. Over 2500 athletes are treading water, just waiting for the gun to go off. When it does, the relatively calm morning lake is quickly transformed into a churning, white water river with feet and elbows flying everywhere. It's really amazing.

Around 7:50am, the fastest swimmers start to come out of the water. These are mostly the pro athletes, and since there aren't too many of them, it's pretty easy to spot them as they come up the chute and have their gear bag ready as they run by.

At 8:10 it's starting to get really busy. Numbers are being yelled out by the volunteer with the bull-horn as we rush around trying to locate bags for each person as they come through.

By 8:20 - the age-group athletes are coming in 100's at a time. At this point, it's better to get out of the way and just point the athletes toward the right section because there are so many of them coming through at the same time. Luckily, this mad rush only lasts about 10 minutes, and then it slows down enough to be manageable again.

This video is taken during the 'rush'. Posted on YouTube by govenice

By 8:30, the massive wave of people has started to slow down a little, and over half of the bags have been handed out, making it easier to find bags for the remaining athletes.

At some point during the mass of people coming through during the last 10-15 minutes, one guy picked up his bag and went into the changing tent to get ready for the bike. Several minutes later, he came back out to the gear bags area in a bit of a panic because he was missing one of his cycling shoes. Our volunteer captain announced that we had an athlete missing a shoe, so all 30 of us quickly searched our area to see if maybe it fell out of his bag and was lying on the ground. Unfortunately, it was nowhere. We even started looking in the remaining bags to see if we could find a matching shoe - but no luck. I can still see the look on his face, and I remember thinking how that might just be the most horrible way to end an Ironman attempt. It was pretty clear that the shoe wasn't in the gear bag area - so I could only imagine two possibilities: 1) the guy didn't pack his shoe, or 2) some other athlete ended up with the shoe in his bag and brought it into the changing tent. So I immediately ran over to the changing tent and started scanning the floor for a single SIDI genius, size 10.5 shoe. After only 30 seconds of looking, I FOUND IT! I asked the guy standing next to the shoe if it was his, and it wasn't. Then I picked up the shoe and held it over my head. "Is this anyone's shoe?" I yelled. No reply. So I ran it back out to the gear bags area and shouted to the athlete, "Is this it?" His face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. I really felt like I saved his day. I wrote down his number (#837), so I could keep track of him online and make sure he finished (he did).

By 9am, most athletes are through transition and on the bike. The few athletes that are still coming through get lots of help because the ratio of volunteers to athletes is very good at this point.

9:20am is the swim cut-off. From transition, I can hear the announcer at the edge of the water encouraging the swimmers who are close to the stairs to hurry up and get out before their time runs out. Then he announces that the swim is cut-off. Anyone still in the water is DONE. After the cutoff, I took a rough count and there were around 40 gear bags still left in the transition area. That's 40 people who paid close to $600, and probably trained for the better part of a year, and didn't finish the swim.

Overall, it was an awesome experience. I only got yelled at by one athlete when I mis-heard his number and held up the wrong bag for him. I thought I heard 1054, but he was 1064. So I quickly switched bags and he was on his way. I didn't take it personal - he was jazzed and racing. Everyone else was very thankful and polite. And finding that shoe for #837 was the highlight of the morning.

Things I learned during the first shift:

• Tie a ribbon or use bright colored tape on your gear bag so it's easy to spot. I'll probably be coming through transition during that 8:20-8:30 rush, and the bags with a ribbon tied on them were much easier to spot.
  


• Go into the gear bags section in the morning before the race and figure out where your bag is (which aisle and which row) so you know exactly where to go after the swim.


• Yell your number to the person with the bull-horn as you come through the chute. He'll relay it to the volunteers, and they'll have your bag off the ground and ready for you.


• Pre-open sunscreen bottles before you pack them. I saw some athletes struggling to open the foil cap on new bottles of sunscreen.


• Cinch the top of the bag closed to make sure nothing falls out. Around half of the bags were not cinched closed. I'm honestly surprised only one athlete lost an important piece of gear.


• Stay calm and smooth going through transition. Some people were really acting like a chicken with their head cut off and it just made then slower, not faster. "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast."