Ironman Triathlon Florida

This past Saturday, David and I volunteered at the 10th Annual Ironman Triathlon Florida. The whole day was extremely moving. What started out as just a spur of the moment volunteer opportunity ended up being an amazing experience that I will not soon forget.
The section of the trail that we manned was located in a state park. There were about ten large tables each with something different to offer the triathletes. Some had water, ice, and ice water, and others had gatorade and cola. The runners were also offered food in the form of chicken broth, bananas, pretzels and these nasty tasting gel packs that were only one gulp but were full of nutrition.
David worked the sponge station which was a huge trash can full of sponges soaked in ice water. David would hold out cold sponges as the triathletes ran past and they would grab them and either squeeze the water out over their heads or stuff the cool sponge in their shirt to cool down. You can bet that his hands were pretty cold!! In the picture below you can see the Aid Station on the left where David was and the runners passing by on your right.
Isabelle and I had the less glorious, but still satisfying job, of making sure that the discarded cups, sponges and food waste would make it in the cans and not be left on the floor to be tripped on. Judging from the cups laying on the floor in the above picture, I was obviously behind the camera and not at my duty station. Although it looks like a small area, there were actually about fifty volunteers with a consistent stream of runners going both ways. We covered an area of about two-hundred yards so I was kept busy keeping our section of the road clean.
Isabelle was my little helper for the most part, but when I took my breaks she would help with one of the most important jobs of all, morale. She was happy and animated the whole day, and the runners would love it when she giggled as they ran past. She made lots of friends both at our aid station and others.
Here she is at the end of a long day of hard work!!
This triathlon has been the experience of a lifetime for all three of us. I was deeply moved by the perseverance and strength of the athletes. I hope to volunteer again some time in the near future.
Love y'all!!