Giving Back

Over the past several weeks I have been giving back to the running community by volunteering at races and packet stuffing events and I had a blast at each event!  It all started with the locally-famous St. Patrick's Day Parade Run in downtown St. Louis.  My cousin is the course director and I have both run the race and volunteered in the past.  This year I managed to get the boyfriend up VERY early to volunteer with me.  He ended up enjoying it because he had the megaphone and was yelling words of encouragement as well as letting them know that the water stop was on the right.  He loved the power his volunteer assignment gave him!

The next weekend I volunteered at a water stop for the Run for 21K half marathon and half marathon relay.  We had a large group of volunteers and we even had a pom pom group!

The Tuesday and Wednesday evenings after the Run for 21K water stop were filled with packet stuffing for the GO! Marathon and Family Fitness Weekend.  GO! St. Louis rewards their volunteers by letting them accumulate their hours towards free merchandise and most importantly, FREE RACES!  So after the two nights of packet stuffing, all of my volunteering in 2014, and my upcoming volunteer shift at the race expo, I will have 19.5 volunteering hours and you get a free half marathon with 20 hours.  Only one more shift, most likely at the GO! relay this summer, and I can run the half marathon next year for FREE!  So not only is it fun to give back to the running community, but you usually end up with at least free shirt and snacks and sometimes a free race entry in the process.  Give back when you can, you won't regret it!