Carpinteria Triathlon
My assigned post, along with two other volunteers, was a busy intersection on the running route of the triathlon in downtown Carpinteria. Our instructions were to simply cheer on the runners and we were specifically told that we were not to direct traffic. But it quickly became apparent that if we didn’t take matters into our own hands somebody would get hurt or killed so the three of us marched out into the intersection and for about three hours did our best traffic cop impersonations.
I don’t know who planned this route but it was definitely a Bad Situation. Carpinteria is a fairly sleepy little beach town but with 900 triathlon participants things felt busy. At one point cyclist were still completing their course down Carpinteria Avenue while the first runners headed outbound on their 10K. Then the runners returned along the same route, turned the tight corner at our intersection, colliding with cyclists and late outbound runners while the whole lot of them were dodging the enormous car traffic that was pulled in by the two Sunday services at a large nearby church.
It would have been a good idea to have police officers to handle the traffic, to re-route runners or cars and to have, at the very least, some orange traffic cones to define the runner’s lane and alert drivers to what was going on. Without these it was chaos. Thank goodness I’d been issued an orange safety vest because it gave me a small measure of authority (and visibility) while I stood in the street holding back long lines of car traffic to allow runners to cross the street in safety.
Keep in mind these runners had already had a bracing early morning 1.5K ocean swim, then a 40K bike ride and were at the end of their 10K run by the time they passed me for the second time. The pain was visible in their limping gait and contorted faces and more than one asked me, only half-jokingly, if I would call them a taxi. Many of them were light-headed and zoned out and at that point couldn’t comprehend our clearest instructions as we attempted to guide them around the corner into the bike lane. They were understandably confused by all the traffic and quite a few darted out in front of cars, giving me a near heart-attack. I’ll be writing a letter to the organizers of the event with suggestions on how to improve the situation for next year.
Meanwhile, it all finished well with no major mishaps and I was so inspired by all that grit and determination that I went home and knocked out a quick and easy seven miles along the waterfront.