One of the bikers.
The Crew
This past weekend, I had the honor of volunteering at the IronMan Qualifiers. 70.3 miles total(and this is the half race! The full race is in October)! 1.2 miles swimming through choppy ocean water, 56 miles of biking the curvy hills of Hawaii, then finishing it off with a nice 13.1 mile run to the finish line. It is unbelievable to see the determination and strength these people have!
This past weekend, I had the honor of volunteering at the IronMan Qualifiers. 70.3 miles total(and this is the half race! The full race is in October)! 1.2 miles swimming through choppy ocean water, 56 miles of biking the curvy hills of Hawaii, then finishing it off with a nice 13.1 mile run to the finish line. It is unbelievable to see the determination and strength these people have!
My friend Jonathan and I were set up at Check point #2, mile 4.5 of the running race. Our job was to write down all of the runners numbers as they ran past us. Imagine groups of 100 runners coming at you at and you having to read the numbers on their arms (which are moving) or the numbers on their tags(which were usually blowing in the wind). Let's just say I had quite the hand cramp by the end of the day, and my eyes took a while to adjust again.
People come from all over the world to race this race. All different shapes, sizes, and abilities; These people have unbelievable determination! One man stuck out to me in particular. About half way through the day, we had a mishap happen at our station. A man who had one leg, was participating in the race. For the running part, he had a bicycle that he peddled with his hands. This part of the race was a turn around point that had quite a curve to it. The man in the wheelchair came a little too fast and whipped around a little to hard, which made him go straight into the lava rock. He fell out of his chair and cut up his foot pretty badly. We helped him back up in to his chair but one of his pedals was bent up from the lava rock. Jonathan luckily was able to bend it back in place! If i was this man i would be done by this point!! I could not believe what happened next. I cleaned up his cut with what we had, we refilled his water bottle, he thanked us.... AND HE KEPT GOING! The strength of this man was so inspiring.
The day ended with meeting back up with the other 12 or so people that volunteered with my school. This day was so much fun..... It was quite the opportunity!
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