Packet Stuffing

   Its now official ... marathon week has begun.  The training is done and now its time to celebrate the marathon and enjoy in all of the festivities that go into marathon week.  This weekend marked the first event that we are scheduled to participate in, Packet Stuffing.  For those of you who don't know, everyone who was lucky enough to get an official number for the Boston Marathon will get a big bag of stuff when they pick up their race number.  The bag is filled with the official marathon booklet, tons of brochures, random snacks, a bottle of water, some marathon gifts and of course the marathon shirt!!   Unfortunately, these bags don't pack themselves so the BAA relies on volunteers to do it. 
   While it doesn't sound that bad, when you consider that you have to stuff over 25,000 marathon packets in 16 hours the task becomes a little bit more daunting.  The stuffing is actually run by our good friend Tom, so the packet stuffing helps serve as another way for Renee and I to spend some time with him and his wife Lyn. 
    We got to the warehouse around 1 pm and immediately took our place in our row.  We were towards the end of the line and our specific jobs were as follows:  1 - Renee was in the second to last spot in our assembly line and her job basically consisted of rolling the bottle of water in the free marathon shirt so that it fit nicely into the bag.  Once she was done putting it into the bag, she handed it to me.  2 - My job, which was probably the most important, was to roll the bags as tightly as possible and put them into a large cardboard box.  Each cardboard box had to fit 100 of the marathon bags, and the count had to be nearly exact.   
      Unlike last year, Renee and I were mentally prepared this year for the packet stuffing.  Its hard to imagine how slow 4 hours seems to go by standing in an assembly line.  I am not sure if it is because we were seasoned veterans of packet stuffing or if it was the fact that we got to stop 40 minutes early because we were actually ahead of schedule, but time seemed to fly this year!  All in all, it wasn't that bad, and with our early finish we got to spend more time at dinner with Tom and Lyn. 
     While some of you may not seem that excited by the packet stuffing, it really helped change the mood of the marathon training.  Honestly, it kind of symbolized the end of training and the start of marathon week which will consist of fun things like the health / wellness expo, motivational speakers, number pick up, etc.  It was a nice change and really helped build the excitement for the big day. 

Assembly Line.  Each row contained six volunteers and functioned independently.  This is a nice picture that helps show all the different things that need to get put into the bag before it is complete.

Picture of me functioning as the team anchor.  I am holding up a completed bag that will then be folded up and placed into the big cardboard box and shipped off to Boylston.

Renee holding a marathon shirt with a water wrapped inside of it.   Below is a video clip of Renee on one of her "multiple" breaks.  She tries to cover it up by saying she was trying to network, but I am not so sure.