Behind every good race, there is a band of unsung heroes quietly working away behind the scenes to put everyhting together. In most cases this is done on a completely voluntary basis. What makes people come out in wind and rain, hail and snow to give their time in this way? For those of you who have run a big race like a city marathon, you have no doubt felt this tremendous sense of community and oneness, of being all in it together. This applies just as much to those who volunteer as those who. We all know that how running races helps expand your capacities and personal qualities by pushing them to the limit; similarly volunteering to put a race together and take it apart (often in an extremely limited time frame) can really provide an amazing challenge that will will leave you a bigger person after the race than before it.

There are many ways you can help volunteer, and we list just a few of the ways below:

Race setup and takedown.

For the major city marathons and races of similar size, this job is usually contracted out to a professional outfit, but smaller races still rely on the doodwill of dedicated helpers. In particularly, races over marathon distance tend to attract fewer and better trained athletes than the marathon itself, and need bigger setup operations to accommodate athletes over a longer time. Race setup tends to confront you with all sorts of challenges you never expected would happen on the day, and just as runners say no two races are ever the same, setup volunteers would say no two race setups are ever the same! The night before you could find yourself trying to empty huge puddles that have appeared on the track after a torrential downpour, or improvising some way to keep a race tent stable against the wind.

Race setup can really push your ingenuity and patience to the limit: no matter how tedious or frustrating the task you are doing, try and tie it in to how important doing this job will be for the runners and how much it will help them. If you are a runner or a former runner yourself, you will already know the trials runners go through in the course of a race and how much they appreciate any effort to help them.

Helping during the race

However big and professional a race gets, there are very few of them that would survive without voluntary help in some shape or form. For the most part, this will consist of stewarding the runners around the race course. Usually there are groups of stewards manning a particular place in a race and it is very unlikely you will find yourself on your own. If you have nothing in particular to do at any given time, you can always cheer the runners around the course. There is of course a mental barrier to cheering on one total stranger after another, but if you can sincerely offer goodwill from your heart as you are cheering them on, you will find after a while that you are definitely contributing something to make the runners lives better. Don't get too discouraged if some runners ont respond or smile;

Many distance races - especially those longer than the marathon - are held around a small loop. In that case, people to count the number of laps a runner has done are required, and indeed the size of the race field can be curtailed in some cases by the nmber of available race counters. Counters are usually assigned two to three runners apiece - any more and the possibility of writing down one runners time on another runner's sheet begins to increase exponentially. When counting, one is only noting times a small fraction of the time, which leaves open the temptation to fill the rest of the time with chatting and having fun with your fellow counters. Have fun by all means, but make sure you stay focused on the job and dont miss any of your runners going by!

Race entertainment

For large courses such as city marathons - providing some race entertainment is a perfect way to contribute to the race without any prior organisation. Just pick a spot on the route and start performing. Dynamic music performances such as samba or drumming are always welcome, and really add to the carnival atmosphere. You could try other things like juggling or acrobatics - anything that gives the runners joy even for 30 seconds is certainly appreciated by them! You can turn it into your own personal marathon attempt, as you try and keep up your performance for a certain number of hours.

And finally...

This is by no means an exhaustive list; the bigger the race, the wider the variety of skills needed. Medical people are of course much in demand, as are people for post race massage. If youve never done massage before you should be able to pick it up fairly quickly from those around you. Perhaps you can contribute in an admin capacity by registering phone entries or designing a website. You just have to find your own way of slotting into the team, that's all. Good luck!