Be Nice to the Volunteers!

This weekend I volunteered at a triathlon.  It was a small tri, and from what I understand, a first for this particular group.  I think the racers had an okay time, but I can’t say the same for the volunteers.

Before you ask, I am being intentionally vague about the name of the race purely because I don’t want this post to come up in search results when potential racers are looking for info while considering registering for next year.  I do think this day was an anomaly, and I think the race organizer will fix things for next year.

I was stationed out on the bike course at what was probably the most confusing part of the course.  Visualize this:  the bike course was shaped like a lollipop.  Riders come out of transition on the stick part, then they make a big circle.  Then they repeat that circle.  Upon completing the second circle, they ride back down the stick part of the course and return to transition.

Double loop.  That’s the confusing part.  So once the race got going, there were people on their first loop and people on their second loop riding together.

My job was to try to make sure they knew where to go.  So I was screaming at riders that for their second loop, they went straight, for T2, they turned.  And people still got confused, but most riders were polite.

The spectators were not.  I had spectators screaming at me that I was confusing riders.  I had a woman come over to me and try to shove me off the block I was standing on while she yelled at me.  I had spectators come up and try to take over my job.

It was awful and kind of humiliating.  The last thing I wanted to do was confuse riders, and I know that when you’re in the zone, sometimes you lose all sense of logic and nothing makes sense.  So it happens.

But these other spectators were awful.  I wanted to give up and leave, but I stayed on my post, because as expected, by the time their friends were through, those spectators left and there were still people out on the bike course.

The RD asked for volunteer comments and I told him exactly what I thought.  He apologized and said that the racers should have known about the looped course and that he heard my yelling and it seemed fine.

But it still left a sour taste in my mouth and I don’t know that I’ll volunteer in that group again, not with spectators like that.

So if you’re out at a race, remember, the volunteers are doing their best.  And while I still don’t think I did anything wrong, volunteers may sometimes make mistakes, but they’re trying.  They’re out there to support the racers and to help them have the best race possible.