A Modest Proposal

While I’ve volunteered for my share of events in the past, including at triathlons, I don’t think I’ve ever run the gamut of volunteer experiences as I did at Big Foot last weekend, from packet pickup to handing out Clif Bloks to directing athletes. So while I’m familiar with some of the quirks and foibles familiar to our sport, this was also a bit of an eye-opener. And as such, I have some observations and suggestions as to how we can make all of us happier in the long run, as far as triathloning is concerned.

1. The swim

Picture a boomerang. Picture a bunch of ants industriously working their way along the inside of the boomerang, going around the tip, then returning to home base along the outside of the boomerang. That’s what the Olympic swim at Big Foot should have looked like. Instead, what did we have? Yes, a whole slew of triathletes swimming from tip to tip, forgetting about that whole silly curved swim-along-the-buoys part.

Now, I am the first to be sympathetic to people who can’t swim straight. To people who, for example, are swimming a rectangular course and they somehow find that they’re angling in, realize this when they bonk up against a lifeboat, then start angling back out towards the turn buoy and find that they’re like a salmon swimming upstream, against a sea of swimmers. I mean, theoretically, I can see how that would happen. But when you’re a fast, FOP swimmer, you know how to sight, and pretty darn well at that. At least enough to know what you’re doing when you start swimming and start angling outward right away, towards the end turn buoy, instead of swimming along the buoys.

While it was entertaining to watch the police and fire boats go chugging along and try to rein these swimmers in, back towards BuoyLand, the damage was already done at that point, and these FOP swimmers had already given themselves an unfair advantage. Where I come from, we have a quaint little word for people like that: no-good cheaters, aka pondscum. And for these cheaters, I’ve come up with a revolutionary solution that I think will soon sweep the triathlon world as far as stopping this kind of egregious behavior: sniper fire.

Yes, sniper fire. Think about it – you already have police boats out there, surely equipped with the necessary weaponry. And their marksmanship is sure to be pretty good, so that out of a cluster of cheaters, they’re bound to hit at least a couple. And a couple is probably all it would take – to set an example and to let people know that such a thing won’t be tolerated. Pick off a few as a lesson to others, and I guarantee that everyone else will hew to those buoys so closely that it would probably be called illegal in states like Kentucky.

2. The bike out

Chance are unless you’re a really fast swimmer (or a cheater), you’re probably going to be heading out with your bike amidst a scrum of people, all also dashing out rather hurriedly. So let’s perhaps remember that none of us exist in a vacuum. That means that when you run out of transition and are headed to the bike mount line, and you stop abruptly to, say, tighten your shoes, or start your watch, or pull out a GU.......you’ll be causing a mighty pile-up of people behind you. Yes, it’s true. We have not yet perfected the invisi-bubble that envelops each racer in a safe little cocoon whereby your actions do not affect the other people around you. Maybe someday. In the meantime, KEEP IT MOVING, PEOPLE! Or at least step off to the side while you see to your various ministrations and fussing so that you don’t become Herbie the bottleneck.

I will note that if I’m the one out there volunteering, I run a tight ship, and you might just get a good blow across the kneecaps if you engage in these types of actions. Have crowbar will travel, that’s what I always say. But whacked or not, you’ll certainly be yelled at. This is unlike one of the other volunteers who ignored all the mayhem so that she could wish everyone a “happy race, with sunshine and twinkly rainbows!!” Miss Karin too was more along the lines of telling people “say, pretty please, oh great and wonderful triathlete that you clearly are, could you possibly.....” blah blah, the rest of which was lost as I was yelling at people to MOVE IT NOW OR I’LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO MOVE ABOUT. She is nice; I am not nice; watch out for the crowbar-wielding chick at your future races.

Oh, and for those people who leave the bike out with their helmets on backwards........having to stop after you’re told that said helmet is on backwards and turn it around in front of a crowd of people is punishment enough in and of itself. Crowbar-whacking would be overkill.

There are also the people who get a bit turned around and have no clue where they’re going or what direction they should be headed in. At one point, a volunteer took some cones and placed them strategically on the pavement to indicate the bike course direction. “It’s idiot-proof!” he happily proclaimed. “I give it 2 minutes,” I said, cynically. I was wrong, of course – the very next racer circumvented the cones and started off in the wrong direction, or tried to. You folks don’t need to be eliminated – fate will probably take care of that at some point soon anyway, at the rate you’re going.

3. The run out

You’ve paid good money to do this race. I get that. Really, I do. And you shouldn’t have to worry about such mundane things as littering, tossing water cups in wastebaskets, etc. You’re correct in that before you get on the actual bike or run course, where littering IS prohibited and penalized, you can toss things and volunteers (i.e. me and my ilk) will pick that shit up. However. Is it REALLY that much more difficult to toss an empty cup a foot to the side rather than just tossing it directly at your feet? I don’t quite get this. Tossing it at your feet means that either you’re really concerned about the extra .000001 kilojoule of effort require to toss said cup slightly to the side – in which case you’re a freak – OR you’re tossing it there because you know it’ll impede the racers behind you, at least until one of us schleppy volunteers gets around to sweeping it off the course. Which is rude. Now, while I’m an advocate of sniper fire for many if not most offenses, that seems a little harsh here, and I have hopes that these people can be rehabilitated, so I’d just give them the kneecap whack.

(Note to the racer who winged her cup off to the side and hit me squarely in the chest with it, and then started apologizing profusely - it's okay. Really. At least you were trying to throw your cup off to the side.)

While I’m at it – how about the whole packet pickup thing. Just because we’re there the day before the race handing out all your official race stuff does NOT mean that we’re anything other than the usual schleppy volunteers. We’re sorry you had a hard time finding packet pickup and apparently wandered around the Gobi desert for hours before you found us. We’re sorry we gave you a pink bag when you are “all about the blue”. We’re sorry we don’t have maps of the run course so that your freakishly obsessed self can go out and GPS it so that you know exactly at what point you should turn it up a notch or two so that you can be 20th in your age group instead of 21st. Really, we’re sorry. But take it up with the actual Race Director, who will care about all this stuff more than we do. Or at least he’ll pretend.

Finally, I have to say that it IS heartening as to how many triathletes actually say thank you and other pleasantries to volunteers. This is totally not necessary – we get that you might be in the zone and don’t have time for that, which is fine. It is a race, after all. But many of you do this automatically, and for that, you’re very welcome....