I pretty much did Friday's run down on a previous post. Saturday's Rep races were in the morning from around 10-1ish. Then there was a five hour break till 6 - when the real World Cup started. The stands filled up fast and when Apolo skated you could hear the crowd roar at every pass he made. I teamed up with Andrea in my running duties so the every other 30 minutes I would watch/photograph while she ran and then I would run while she watched. It worked out nicely. When it was relay time, I was recruited to lap count. I was told that I would be a back up, flipping the binder pages in case the computer counter was off... but there was an open computer and I was told to hop on that! Holy ba-gee-bees! I had only lap counted ONE time before and it was for like US Championships last December. But for a World Cup... hello pressure! I jumped on board and had lane 3. It was the Women's B semis. 27 laps. All I had to do was push the down arrow key on the laptop in front of me when the skater passed. Not hard. So the races start and I don't think I really took a breath as I very intensely watched my team. We got down to 0 laps to go and I DID IT!!! I was ready to go when there were still three more relays!!! AH! I did it with flying colors though. All went well. That was the end of Saturday's fun. We got to leave the Oval around 10PM. Straight to bed it was for Sunday's happenings.
Sunday morning not rested at all Nick and I arrived at the Oval a little after 8AM. The morning was bringing more responsibility as I was to take over the duties of Head Runner since Magda, the Head Runner wasn't going to be there. Lucky it was just the Rep races and they aren't too chaotic. Races started at 9:30. The packets were coped and distributed. All the runners were there and in place ready for action on my call.
I had to go sit by the -Where Everything Happens- area. By that I mean: starters, head ref stuff, timing, wires, cables, computers and people with non-USA accents. I would sit and wait for the start lists and results to get official, OKed and printed. I would take the papers across the way to the copiers. The rest of the Runners would notice me not sitting there and head to the copiers. I usually had a paper of start lists and a paper of results. I would had the results to KD and she would start those copies while I would make 17 copies of the start list and head back to the W.E.H. area and distribute:
2 - announcers
8 - Refs
1 - some guy
2 - some guys
1 - guy behind the 2 guys
1 - timers
1 - lap counters
1 - starters
I would then go back to the copiers and the runners had everything taken care of. I would go back and sit and watch the races and wait to do it again. We had to be quick getting the papers distributed because that was how the skaters and coaches knew what was going on. We also deliver copies to media/photogs/broadcasting truck, VIPs/Fan Zones, skaters/coaches/doping. So we had our work cut out for us.
The Rep races ended and the normal Head Runner came back to take over for the evening races. Andrea and I did our switching off and this time for the relays I was backup lap counter. All went well and like I mentioned before with the world record breaking, the 3 Relay teams were under it and I believe there was one more broken.
All in all it was fun. Short Track is an amazing sport. Volunteering is a great thing to do because you don't have to pay to get in, you get cool passes that get you places that regular people can't go. You get a free shirt and free food. Granted you don't get to watch all the races (depending of your job) but if you live near by you can see short track anytime. You don't just watch the action, you are apart of the action.
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