Busy Weekend!

It’s Tuesday and I am still trying to catch up on the sleep I lost during the weekend.

The Memorial Run was last Sunday and my REACT team was asked to provide traffic and crowd control for the event. During the week, leading up to the event, we had several meetings to make sure we knew what was expected of us. Unlike other events, where we all work together in close proximity, this event was going to spread the team out to different parts of the City. Because of that, we knew communications between each other was going to be a challenge…and it was.

The night before the marathon, I stayed at the Biltmore Hotel (at I-40 and Meridian), courtesy of the marathon organizers. The reason? I was going to have to be downtown at the transit bus station at 4:30 am on Sunday morning. Instead of sleeping at home and waking my family up when I got up, I chose the motel. That way, I would not disturb others when I got up. I arrived at the hotel at 8:30 pm, watched some Nascar, got on my computer for a while and then went to bed at 9:30 pm. I set my phone alarm for 4 am and my watch alarm for 3:55 am, but It didn’t really matter because at 3:45 am, I received a call from one of the organizers, making sure I was up. Very slowly, I got out of bed and hopped in the shower.

The weather forecast had called for rain overnight, but when I stepped outside, it was still dry. The last thing we needed at the marathon…..was rain. I had purchased a rain jacket the day before, just in case it did rain, but I did not want to actually wear it…because I did not want it to rain. I was stationed at the bus terminal to make sure all traffic (other than buses) stayed out of the terminal. At around 5:15 am, I noticed it lightning south west of the bus station. About 15 minutes later, I decided to go to my truck and get my raincoat. Just as soon as I got it, the heavy rains came. It was miserable. What surprised me were the number of runners that came unprepared for the rain. For the last 5 days, forecasters told us Sunday would be a rainy day….a wash- out. It turned out they were right.

For the rest of the race, I spent most of my time walking in the rain, answering questions from runners and giving directions. Many of the runners were getting upset because they were wanting to go back to their hotels early, yet the buses were not taking anyone back to the hotels until around 10:30 or so. That meant that many runners had to stand in the wet rain and the cold….for almost 2 hours. Unfortunately, since I had no control over any of the decisions, all I could do was apologize to the runners and try to find them places to stay warm. Many of them just chose to sit on the warm buses until it was time to go back to their hotels. Others just complained. I was chewed out several times and got called names, but it didn’t bother me. I knew people were wet, cold and upset, so I did not take anything they said personal. I just continued to keep a good attitude and tried to be as polite and professional as I could.

At one time, I approached a young couple who looked cold and lost. They informed me they were not from this area and could not remember where they had parked. So, the three of us piled into my truck and drove around downtown for thirty minutes and finally found their car. As the race came to an end, our clean-up started. There really wasn’t that much to do, but we volunteered to stay and help out wherever we were needed. By 2 pm, our team was released. All of us were sleepy, tired, wet and cold. We decided to meet at a Chinese restaurant to eat and have a DE-briefing (like we do after every event we work). I left the restaurant at 3:30 pm and went home. I slept until around 6 pm.

Yesterday was an average day. For some reason, I automatically woke up at 4 am, but went right back to sleep. I was tired when I got up at 5:30 am, but I got up, hopped in the shower to wake up and then headed off to work. It was a long, tiring, day and one of our dispatchers called in sick, so I stayed at work until 8 pm.

In other news…..

Gayla got enrolled in college yesterday at OCCC. WOW…..that is almost hard to say and type. It is hard to believe my baby girl is already going to college. Her last day of school is May 18th and her graduation day is May 14th. She is so excited to graduate and is anticipating college. Her major is nursing. I am so proud of her and she has been an outstanding student as long as I can remember.

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