Did my first bit of marshalling on Saturday night. Had an email asking for help on a night time 10k up in Rivington and since the rewards for doing so include entry to a future event including Grizedale/Howgills marathons at ~£35 i figured it wasn't a bad use of time, plus i could get a bit of running in on the hills before/after.
Was a fairly decent experience, although had to arrive at 4pm, for a 7pm race start which felt very early and resulted in ~90mins of standing around. Then we were led to our marshalling posts. I got moved to a different post and got there around 6:10 and the other person hadn't turned up so i was on my own for almost an hour. Would've been a bit boring, but i figured i'd use this time to run rather than going for a run after the event finished. I was at the bottom of a long ~5% hill and so did a few hill reps and then a bit of a cool down. Glanced at my watch and realised it was 7pm and the first runners were likely due in 10 minutes so had to sprint (for me!) the half mile back to my post to get there in time
It was pretty cool though as you could just see the procession of head torches approaching from the distance.
Everyone went past by around half past and the sweepers came and sent me back to the start. I got there around 8 and then proceeded to stand around for another hour. Most people finished around 8:45 and we were just stood waiting for 2 women to finish who finally came in around 9:15. Then followed by packing up some more stuff, but again there were loads of people stood around with not enough to pack but not really knowing what else to do. I saw some people head for their cars and after 10 mins decided to follow them for an escape. Some kind of better leadership may have been better for newcomers to marshalling, however i got the impression it was a lot of regulars who help out often and so they all seemed to know what they were doing.
The down side is that i took my spare 4ah battery for my head torch and it must've fell out of my bag as i can't find it. I only went into my bag around 3 times to get a drink and would've hoped i'd have noticed it fall out. I went back Sunday to look around but no luck and no sign of it having been handed in either