Last week I volunteered at the Nike Womens marathon. I spent roughly 6 hours being one part of a two-man team answering questions at the Info tent. One sad question that I kept getting asked in one way or another was, “Where is my sister?” or “How do I find my mom? She just finished.” Nowadays, most big races set up family/friends meeting areas that are broken down via the alphabet.
If you are running a race (or have a family member or friend running a race), make sure to decide beforehand EXACTLY where to meet. ALSO, I know some people have issues with putting their phones in their bag that they check in the morning but, IMHO, it really is a good idea to have your phone when you finish in case the text alerts that are supposed to track an athlete aren’t working. Unfortunately, this is what happened at both the Chicago marathon and Nike Womens marathon this year.
Sadly, out of all those questions, none of them were “Hello Mr. Info man, what’s your number?”…at which point I could have replied, “Sub 3 ”