Water Stop

  Nothing all that exciting to report over the last few days.  Since my visit to the orthopedist, I have been laying pretty low since she told me to take 3-5 days off from activity.  Basically, I have been in kind of a holding pattern for the last couple of days where I have focused predominantly on my physical therapy stretching and strengthening exercises. 
   In addition to doing my routine physical therapy exercises, Renee and I also had to pay our L Street dues by working a water stop this weekend on the organized run.  As I have mentioned before, L Street does a wonderful job of organizing long runs in which there are water stops every three miles.  In order to be part of the marathon training group that goes on these runs, everyone has to volunteer at one of the water stops on a Sunday long run.  Renee and I chose this weekend for two reasons - #1 It was a shorter run towards the end of the marathon training so we didn't think we would be missing out all that much, #2 We figured it would better working a stop in April since the weather would be a little bit warmer when compared to working one in the dead of winter.  
    To prepare for our water stop we made a trip BJ's to stock up on all the necessary supplies.  According to L Street, each water stop was required to have 8 gallons of gatorade, 6 gallons of water, 500 7oz cups, snacks (candy, fig newtons, jelly beans, etc), motrin and tissues.  After stocking up on all the needed supplies, we were good to go.  Since we were the first stop on the designated course, we had to get out to our location on Beacon Street bright and early.  We arrived to our stop at around 7:50 to get set up.  We poured cups and cups of gatorade and water in preparation for the rush of runners that we were sure we would experience.  Shortly after getting there, a few of the runners started to trickle in.  These were most likely the runners that like Renee and I probably left a little bit early since we run at a slower pace when compared to the marathon qualifiers in the group. 
     About 10 minutes after our first runner arrive, the flood of fast runners hit the stop.  It was pure chaos for about 5 minutes, during which time tons of runners were just grabbing at cups of gatorade and water.  I would probably relate it to a piranha feeding frenzy, and while it was happening Renee and I were pouring more and more cups of gatorade in a frantic effort to keep up.  All in all, the water stop went pretty well.  We met some nice people and also fulfilled our requirement for L Street. 

Picture of our L Street Water Stop at Fielder Footbridge off Beacon Street.