Sitting in a long meeting today and feeling my achy thighs and biceps, I thought quite a bit about all the volunteers out on the racecourse yesterday. The start was well staffed with folks handing out bibs to the racers, taking our personal bags to the trucks that would ferry them to the finish area, guarding the intersections between the track and pedestrian paths. Out on the course, the aid stations were very well supported, with at least a dozen or more vols patiently handing water cups to unsteady racers like me, even when they had to run (okay, jog slowly) to do so. And then at the finish, there were scores of high-schoolers doing everything from hanging finishers' medals around racers' necks as we glided over the line and handing out even more water to bringing our personal bags to us even before we could stagger up to the fence. I can only imagine all the (volunteer) labor that went into managing all these volunteers, and I thank every one of them (like those in this shot from Skinnyski.com) for their work!
If the volunteers are the grassroots level of ski racing, here is the royalty: the start of the first wave of the 2008 City of Lakes Loppet. Note the hill! The eventual winner, Andrey Golovko of the Factory Team, is in fifth or so at this point, wearing a yellow suit. (See more of Golovko in this Skinnyski.com photoset, images 17-20.) Good lord but these men and women are smooth. The poor dude at the end got tangled up with another racer, lost a ski, and had to stumble back down the hill to retrieve it.
2008 City of Lakes Loppet - Elite Wave Start from Christopher Tassava on Vimeo.