Debbie Swanson

Being a new course, it was difficult to know what to expect and I understand the challenges leadership faced when planning. When Aid Station 3 did not have the water it planned to have, it was not a surprise, but the resolution was difficult. To have to make a total of 6 trips back to the staging area (a round trip of 3 miles each time) to cart in 120 pounds of additional water (3 buckets of 5 gallons each, 1 gallon @ 8 lbs = 120 lbs for each 3 buckets) was excruciatingly difficult physical work for the aid station team - which fortunately we stopped at 4 trips after we convinced leadership that though we needed more water, we didn't THAT much more water. In fact, in the end, we ended up pouring out 6 buckets (2 trips worth) that we did not use. Only a couple of the people on this aid station team were fit enough to do this task - and even though we had some of the fittest OPS team people helping bring the water to us, we did provide several helpers to push and pull the water up the hill and who made the round trip a couple times. Please note if using this same course in the future - we used a total of 16 5-gallon buckets, and that was on one of the hottest race days of many years, and that water consumption included the water backpacks used to mist people with water as they went by, and filled everyone's camelbacks and flasks. We don't need 25 buckets of water at that aid station. Also, everyone knows this was a communication problem with the park rangers who made the mistake of putting the 25 buckets of water at the wrong aid station. Understand that - it's a new relationship. Just the obvious statement that double-checks need to be in place to prevent the mistake from happening again.

But still, it was an awesome race, and it's always rewarding to not only see the lead runners and cheer them on, but to be of serious help to the runners in the mid- and back of the pack. They truly needed us on that hot, hot day. It was extremely rewarding and I rate the experience fairly high for that reason.