Transrockies: Today's Blog Post -- Day 6 (Final) of Volunteering (and Racing)

Day 6 (Last!): Vail to Beaver Creek


Finish line in Beaver Creek.

The Dark Before The Dawn

Today marks the final stage of Transrockies and excitement was in the air! At least that's what I woke up to when my van, parked at the start line, slowly became surrounded by volunteer crew and early bird athletes...with me still sleeping in the back! In 15 minutes I was up, dressed, teeth brushed, and on my mountain bike heading to the athlete camp ground just a half mile up the road for breakfast. I barely made it in time to grab what was left of the scrambled eggs and oatmeal with berries.



Anything for shade. It was HOT out there...
if you're not from Texas anyway  ;-)



There was no grocery shopping to do for today. Finish line catering's main goal = GO THROUGH ALL REMAINING FOOD! We provided water at the start line and saw the athletes off one last time. By 8:00am runners were making their way under the ski lifts and heading to Beaver Creek.

We got in our cars and after a few missed turns on the bazillion round-abouts (I hate those things!), we made it into the very chi-chi private area of Beaver Creek. Cam was right - Vail looked like a ghetto by comparison.



THANK YOU Play Green Events for keeping
up with all the recycling AND the cute puppy dog!



We set up under another set of ski lifts at the base of a mountain and by 10:30am we were ready to welcome the first runners. On a side note, I have never been in such a rats maze as Beaver Creek with the hotels, parking garages, and bathrooms! I think I covered more distance just walking to/from my car than I did the entire day of working the finish line.



Runners started arriving around 11:00am all the way through 4:45pm. We kept going through the food we had on hand and at one point a few volunteers from check point 2 drove up and said they were out of supplies. So we loaded them up with chips, melon, oranges, Cokes, gels, and anything else we could spare. Turns out the check points had it pretty rough because this was a new route this year and not only did some people get off course, the course was actually 4 miles longer than the originally posted 19 miles. And it was HOT!



What keeps Drew the announcer going all day? One guess.



Carnage ensued throughout the afternoon but sure enough, runners continued to cross the finish line. We had to shoo kids away from the food because they would just come up and eat, eat, eat (I'm not even going to comment about how parents should bring snacks for their kids). The course time cutoff for the day was 5:00pm and some athletes had been shuttled in from various check points on the course.

We broke down the finish line catering tents and tables for the last time and packed up all the non-food items in the grey bin for storage until next year. We threw out the striped table cloths that had somehow survived 6 days of spills, cuts, wipes, and dirt yet still managed to look bright and cheery. And when we were done, we helped the finish line folks break down the banners and fencing and loaded everything up into the two huge Budget rental trucks that I had followed around for the better part of a week.

Was I sad it was over? No. I was tired and glad for the end. And with sporting bandaids on two left fingers, I don't think my hands could take much more. At the awards banquet it was great to chat with the runners and say final "good byes" to everyone. When I asked the group of runners I was sitting with (Kristi, Greg, Theresa) if they would do Transrockies again, I was given a resounding "YES" from the ladies. Greg said to ask him when his feet stopped hurting. Until next year! Maybe.