“Vilnius marathon”, how did the day of the marathon went for a volunteer and a participant?

                There’s a great sport event in Vilnius, called “Vilnius marathon”, which is organized annually and takes place in Vilnius old town. I had known it for a few years and wanted to either participate or volunteer, yet I hadn’t done that somehow. However, this year something changed, maybe it was CAS, and I filled the volunteering form and also registered as a participant. I am glad that I had done that, since the whole experience was something unique. I started my day at 7 am at the central camp of the volunteers and found my coordinator. After the coordinator explained everything to the team, we headed to our posts to work. I was in the start/finish point, thus basically I was responsible that the start/finish line and done many mini jobs that I was asked too. I interacted not only with my team, but also the organizers, medical team and photographers. I had many challenges during my time there, since my post was one of the most unpredictable/ action packed. There were many people passing out because of dehydration, there were issues before every start and at one point I was the photographer, taking photos of people finishing the marathon.

                 After this hard first half of the day, my challenge awaited me. I registered to run the 4.2 km race. My goal was to finish the race as fast as possible, since I often jog during my free time and I was preparing a little during the last month. Unfortunately for me,  I hadn’t thought that the volunteering would take most of my energy. Nevertheless, I focused before the race and tried to regain as much of my energy as I can. This experience really helped me to build my willpower in moments of despair and gladly my race was a success and I finished even faster than I predicted.

                This running event was a really great experience for me and I will definitely participate in next year’s marathon.  This event is wonderful since it promotes quite effectively healthy life-style because seeing thousands of people of different age group participate in it, makes you see an impact. Many celebrities promoted this event, and there were many ads around the city. Even the mayor of the city participated in it. Also, I noticed a pattern among my friends that this event had made them much more physically active since they started to prepare for it. I would like to believe that this was the same for many others in Vilnius and I think events like these make an impact. For the next year’s marathon, maybe I will try to push my limits to the next level and run the full marathon – 42 km. One thing for sure, that I will train more this time and try to become better every day.

There is a photo of me after finishing the race:

This is the photo in my spot at start/finsih start just after the marathon had started:

Here you can see how did other volunteers at the registration camp worked: