An Inside View: Taking one for the team

This week inside went outside to be inside. In chasing a story on the world’s largest 5K event in Washington and the local folks who were participating, I had to make some deals. DC is an expensive town and I knew that it would take some heavy convincing for the editor and publisher to sign off on my having a weekend on the road. So in the interest of being cost-effective I decided to take one for the team and called up Burn’s Computer Services, who are the timers for the race. They agreed to cover my travel and put me up with their crew, and in exchange I agreed to help with the finish line and then scan bibs. I got taken. I knew trouble was brewing when I cowboy-walked off the plane after a rather thorough security check in the airports. I’m quite sure the removal of my socks and shoes resulted in a biohazard release at the Cincinnatti airport, but then I wasn’t expecting anybody to examine my feet that day. For the 8 a.m. race, the crew made it to the streets around 5 a.m. The nice drizzle we walked out into rapidly developed into a torrential downpour and my feelings of dread increased. Disappearing quickly, I made time for some pre-race shots of the breast cancer survivors and later hitched a ride on a cherry picker for some aerial views of the finish line where I was avoiding working as much as possible. I’d warned the guys that I had to do this for my story and it was just convenient that the circumstance allowed me to avoid pulling tags or working a time machine around overly taxed and sweaty bodies who occasionally lost their breakfast. Instead I was clinging to an all-metal contraption that had me dangling five stories above the asphalt while the rain and wind bounced us up and down and side-to-side so that I was thankful I’d skipped eating that morning. I’m pretty sure that the runners passing beneath me at that moment are equally as grateful that I skipped that meal. Tucking my camera and notes away in plastic, we began to take the first stringers of bib tags into the hotel so they could drip dry. I was then introduced to the tedious task of running a bar code reader on race bibs. Perhaps I should back up and explain how a bib works. The big number that a runner wears has a small portion at the bottom that tears off. If the little pre-cut lines work, a good gentle tug separates the two pieces, if not you might end up whipping a guy around in circles trying to get the thing to detach. Once that bottom part is removed, it’s placed on a stringer that at a normal-size event might hold a couple hundred tags; in this case the stringers were holding thousands of tags. Ordinarily scanning tags can move quite rapidly. That is of course if they are dry, not stuck together, and if the ink has not run down and confused the bar code. In this case the rain had accomplished both obstructions. Following the guidance of the regulars, I curled myself into a matrix-like position of discomfort and began work. The sound of a room full of people scanning bar codes as quickly as possible can best be described as being at a Wal-mart checkout where the customers don’t talk and the clerks are on speed balls, throwing merchandise across a laser scanner. The constant drone of different pitched beeps gives clear understanding as to why C3PO kept hitting R2D2: by the second hour I would have ripped the little guy’s circuit boards loose. I can’t go into details of the exact process the crew goes through to make it all come together, for as they told me I can be tracked down by the Brotherhood of Timers for revealing guild secrets. I’m quite sure the punishment involves listening to endless tapes of recorded bib scanning until your brain explodes. As we washed our hands afterwards, a process which took a good twenty minutes and fifteen bars of hotel soap, I learned that despite the wet and stickiness, that drenched tags did have benefits. Astounded by the amount of ink I was scrubbing off of my third layer of skin, I was relieved to know that the rain had kept the sweat content down and that with no injuries we hadn’t had to wear gloves for blood spattered tags. “On a really hot day like they had here a few years ago, we scanned in someone’s room that was leaving that night because by the time we finished the whole room just reeked of sweat,” said my trainer. “Fifty thousand sweat-drenched tags can give off a mighty stink. I bet they had to throw the comforters away and pull the carpet out of that room.” So even though I couldn’t straighten my back properly and my hands were raw with scrubbing but still had a slight trace of an interesting odor, I counted myself lucky that the rain had kept the numbers and the sweat down. After a great dinner and some rest on a bed that had not been contaminated by tags I managed to straighten most of the way back upright and make it to the airport, where thanks to security I was walking very straight by the time I got back to Knoxville. Marcus is the Associate Managing Editor of The Herald Newspapers. In his varied background he spent several years managing road races for non-profit organizations.