Thank God For Volunteers

So, I did another triathlon on the weekend. Placed about middle of the pack, and won a free entry into another triathlon in August, to continue this crazy cycle.

Have to comment on the volunteers though. These things take a LOT of volunteer time to organize. If you think about it, even for a sprint distance race, you have to have water marshalls, lap counters if it's in the pool, people helping with transition, and people covering every twist and turn of 25 or more kms, just so nobody takes a wrong turn and ends up somewhere spandex shorts are frowned upon.

But to me, these volunteers do so much more than just point me in the right direction while my eyes are still full of chlorine from leaky googles and I'm adjusting to the "wet shorts on bike" feel. They also yell out encouragement.

Of course, you have the standard encouragement "Way to go!", "Good job!" "Almost there!", "Your ass looks good in those shorts", etc.

But my favourite thing to have the volunteers say is "You look strong!"
Power of positive thinking I guess, but that always encourages me and makes me forget the fact that I feel like dry heaving, cause hey, I look good, and that's really all that matters, right?

Of course, volunteers aren't there to give you honest commentary. I'm thinking they go with "You look strong" rather than the more honest "Jesus H. your face is red. I've never seen someone sweat that much. I'm going to call the medic to be ready for you about a kilometre down the road."

Hmmm....I'm going to volunteer for the next race and try that out. Purely scientific of course.