I was lucky that today’s weather was nicer than yesterday’s grey and drizzle: I volunteered to help out at the Cadence Cross race at Canada Olympic Park. I was contacted through the cycling club, and I expected to be a course marshall. That would be standing around at a particular corner of the track for the day, making sure nothing went wrong.
Well, I got there before 7:00, and started helping to modify the course. Another race was run last night (The Dark Night MTB Race), but it needed to be repaired and modified somewhat for today’s ABA cyclocross race. We set about that, and were done on time.
But then the group of volunteers was asked if anyone wanted to help with the timing. I thought I’d give it a try, so instead of standing on a corner, I was sitting in the timing booth, helping the commissars keep track of the race. This was mostly about writing down the numbers of each rider as they passed, but it also involved identifying who was getting lapped so that they could get pulled out of the race.
It was a much more intense day than I was expecting. When the numbers were flying by, the Chief Commissar, Helen, was reeling them off and Peter and I were scribbling them down. It was only later in the day that I got to watch a bit, as the more experienced riders were much less erratic and more uniform in their lap times. Tammy and the kids stopped by after lunch, and saw most of the Expert Men’s race and some of the Open Women’s.
I’m home now, after having helped tear down the course. My face feels sunburnt after having been sitting at the timers’ table, which was facing the sun. I had fun.
I think Tammy wants to kill me. My impression after having walked the course this morning while getting it ready was: “No bloody way am I ever doing this. I’m having trouble walking it.” While Tammy’s reaction to watching the races was telling me: “You should do this.”
