What a Crap Weekend.
We basically lost the entire weekend helping at the Abingdon Marathon.
We left our house mid afternoon on Saturday, and got back late on Sunday evening - cold, tired, and with numerous aches and pains… and with no thanks from the officials at the Abingdon Marathon.
I get dragged into helping every year by my other half - and basically do it because she asks me to. She does it to help her Dad, who would otherwise have a hell of a job on his hands, and he does it because his wife has roped him into it (so it’s probably easier for him to agree to help rather than have his ears chewed off if he doesn’t help).
So - at 7:30am on Sunday morning we set off from W’s parents for the athletics ground where the start/finish is. We are going to be martialling the first mile, and then running the tea and coffee stall for the runners when they finish… all 900 of them.
Marshalling isn’t too bad; although I did have one argument with a motorist who was hell bent on pulling out in front of the runners as they approached. He was the annoying little wankerish kind of git that you really want to kick… hard. The next five minutes of his life were obviously more important than 1000 people running for various charities. I just wish the police had seen him - he would no doubt have been arrested. But there lies the problem - you have a marshall is cold, fed up, not being paid, and doesn’t really want to be there (and who has no ties or interest in the marathon), and a motorist who needs a smack in the mouth.
Anyway - we finish that and go back to the stadium. From the time the first runners started arriving and for the next 5 hours, myself, W and her dad went absolutely flat out making tea with two old teapots, and two water urns. It was like working in a sweat shop - literally; I was making sure we had hot water all the time… my right hand still hurts now from continually filling the boiling urns. Somehow we managed it though, and at the 6 hour mark we started packing up (although we kept enough things out to offer the last groups of people a drink - unlike the rest of the entire stadium that sodded off at the first moment they could). For those mad 3 or 4 hours, none of us got a chance to see any of the people finishing the marathon.
We then (unpaid, and unrequested) cleared all of our own stuff away, then cleared litter from the stadium grandstands. The whole place was like a ghosttown.
None of us got one thankyou from the running club officials for our help at all. I think we were all pretty much unanimous in our decision never to help again.
The winner of the marathon came over the line in about 2 hours 26 minutes; and the race director was too busy yapping with some running club cronie to even notice that anybody had finished… he spent a couple of minutes wandering around with nobody helping him… I’m going to stop writing now before I get more annoyed.