Volunteering on the DC Ragnar SWAT

I love experiencing races through volunteering.  In some cases it can be a great way to get a feel for what to expect when you do the race yourself.  Last month I volunteered for DC Ragnar for their SWAT program.  It was a fantastic experience and I really enjoyed it despite being absolutely exhausted by the end of all of it.

Ragnar is a series of trail and road relay races.  In the road relays, teams of 12 pile into 2 vans and run approximately 200 miles (which for the DC race is from Cumberland, MD to Southeast DC.)  Teams start early Friday morning and finish the race sometime Saturday afternoon.  And yes, runners have to run their legs throughout the night.  Teams within a certain distance of the race have to provide 3 volunteers or pay a penalty.  A friend put out a call for volunteers in one of my running groups, and after thinking about it and doing some research, I decided to do it!  This is part of where SWAT (Sweaty, Wet And Tired) volunteering comes in.

As a SWAT volunteer you manage an exchange point (where 2 runners on a team exchange a slap bracelet instead of a baton) and it can count for either 2 or 3 shifts.  The positions were mostly for minor exchange managers or major exchange managers.  This means that these people try to keep things running (pun intended) and helping runners find their teams and with any potential issues that may arise.  As a minor exchange manager, I had 2 shifts overnight at exchange 20 in Frederick, MD in front of a tractor store.  In return for my shifts, I received a SWAT jacket and a t-shirt in addition to the orange hat all volunteers receive.

Ragnar supplied everything we would possibly need during the night from the basics (like clipboards, pens, flashlights, extra toilet paper for the portajohns, batteries, water and safety vests) to some nice little extras (like kind bars for snacks, and lightsaber flashlights for directing traffic.)

At my exchange point, there were essentially two stations:  The runner chute and the parking entry.  At the runner chute one of us wrote down the team numbers and time they exchanged the slap bracelet, and the other called out team numbers and made sure everybody was following safety protocols.  At the parking entry, one person directed traffic to park in the field and the other radioed team numbers as runners came by so those of us at the chute would be on the lookout and start calling out the numbers.  I ended up working both parts of the exchange point, and for the most part I really enjoyed it.  (The worst of it was reminding runners that they needed to be wearing their reflective vests when they're outside of the van.  As an exchange manager, I was supposed to text the team number to race command and tell them what happened.  If a team gets 3 infractions, they are removed from the race.)

The first part of the night in the runner chute I was on my feet the whole time, and this shift included the peak time for all the runners to arrive.  (As an exchange manager, they give us an idea of when this would happen and how many people to expect.)  I was definitely lucky in that my volunteers were willing to stay a few extra minutes since the peak time was right as the first shift was supposed to leave.  I found the second part of the night entertaining since I sat in a small John Deere tractor on a post so I could see runners coming from a little further away.  This was my view of it basically all night with my water bottle sitting on top and my glow necklace behind it.

It wasn't until the next morning that I realized what it was that I was actually sitting in.  It was definitely a tractor...but its purpose?  (Hint:  Look at the front of the tractor.)

It was a mailbox.

And I must say:  That was one comfy mailbox.

Part of my reasoning for taking the exchange manager position in Frederick is that an amazing donut place is in town.  (The Fractured Prune)   The week of the race I checked the restaurant's hours, and unfortunately they opened just a little too late for me to be willing to wait around for it to open at 8am.  So I drove home, showered (being in a field for a good part of the night made me feel a little gross) and promptly collapsed into bed.

Overall I would definitely do it again, however, while volunteering I was bitten by more than just mosquitoes.  I was bitten by the dreaded Ragnar bug, which caused me to sign up for a trail Ragnar in the spring and I can't wait to run it!  It's a little less intensive than a road Ragnar since you basically camp in one spot and everybody ends up running the same 3 loops by the end of the race, just in a different order.  Am I nuts?  Potentially.  But at least with a trail Ragnar, there's an increased chance of sleep.