Athi's first volunteering!

The Jawadhu Hills Ultra (JHU), a trail marathon, comprising of 30km and 60km distance, was organized by the Chennai Trail club (CTC) in Jawadhu this weekend. Being part of CTC, we naturally opted to volunteer for the event and decided to take Athi along. We have been wanting to take him to one of the CTC events for a long time now, but somehow it kept eluding and this time we decided we have got to do it. Because we were taking him along, we opted to volunteer at the start/finish point - that's the one place that has people flowing in and out all the time, unlike the aid stations that are deep in the trails, with very minimal people around other than a few locals and the runners passing by. 

Up until now, every time we take him out for trips, we'd always been carrying some quick food, and a couple of his toys. But this time, given he is almost 5 years old and this whole trip was going to be mostly outdoors (the school ground), I took a bold call that we are not carrying food - he'll have to eat whatever he's being offered, and a strict 'no' toys!

With a kid, preparation always helps - be it doctor visits, trips, friends' playdates, visiting people, anything and everything. When they are suitably prepared, they'd be ready and acceptive of changing surroundings / environment. So, every time we plan for a trip, we always ensure to tell him atleast a week in advance on where we are going, with whom, by which mode of transport, what are we going to do there, etc. and when the actual day comes, he is more ready than us and excited about the whole thing! 

And thus, our preparation for JHU with Athi began a month ago, telling him about the place, the running, what were we going to do there, how is it going to be, etc, and as the day neared, he kept popping us a variety of questions getting curious about a lot of things. As we neared the actual day of departure, we also told him about the no toys rule but promised him that he'd have other kids and an open ground to play. Although a bit reluctant at first, he agreed.

The whole of evening before the day of the departure he couldn't contain his excitement and kept asking more questions and begged us to start packing and offered so much help with that - choosing his clothes, remembering to take his toothbrush, offering to carry his bag. 

We started off on Friday morning, after breakfast and had lunch at Polur and reached the school (in Jawadhu) at around 3pm. The preparations for the event had started the previous day, and there were people all over the school ground. The Shamiyana and the chairs and tables and bibs and banners were getting set up - the energy and josh all around was palpable. Athi walked around a bit, saw other kids, but didn't really interact right away - felt a bit overwhelmed, I suppose. Venkey then took him along for a dip in the well and the boy came back rejuvenated and all ready! And that's when the bromance started between him and Aegan. Somehow (believe they conversed and understood what the other was saying) the boys figured out that they were of the same age and could as well play amongst themselves, running about the place or walking around or pulling out leaves or feeling the sand in their hands and building sandcastles. Any moment you could see them holding hands, walking around together or hugging each other. Wouldn't say it was all rosy all the time - they did have their fair share of disagreements, but nobody interfered with them and that totally helped, because before you knew they were fighting they were already back to holding hands and hugging - so adorable. Occasionally some volunteer would engage a play with them, or mind over them when they were trying to run into the dark. The whole afternoon until night, he would have hardly talked to me for 5-10 minutes - and most of the conversation revolved around me calling him to eat something, or him coming over to just check where I was and update me what he was upto. The ground was bit rocky, and he tripped once and got his knees slightly hurt, but he managed fine. A quick wash and pat later, off he went, to wander again. He came over to me excitedly post dinner appraising me of the fact that he and Aegan shared their dinner on the same plate. 

Bromancing bros!

As the night fell, the boys wanted to sleep together and dozed off as soon as their head hit the floor, even though there was so much of light and banter in the surroundings - the sheer exhaustion from all evening of play. Finally, as everyone dispersed off to sleep, we took them and put them in tents to continue the sleep. 

The race started off at 5:30AM next morning, and we were all up by 3:30-4:00AM to finish off last minute checks and set up. Athi woke up at 6AM, all excited that he had woken up early and enjoyed looking at the morning sky before sunrise. Slowly the other kids started waking up and the gang was all up again roaming around. 

After breakfast, as they were loitering around spotting monkeys, touch-me-not plants and blowing their whistles (yes, the runners were given a whistle to blow in case they were stuck somewhere in the trail and needed help), the first runner arrived. Seeing all the volunteers getting excited cheering for the runner, the kids rushed over to the finish line and were handed the medal to present it to the runner, and boy, they really loved doing that. And that is how it started - every time a runner came, they would rush over to the finish line, take their turns to give the medals. As time went by, they started running to the moment they spotted a runner running to the finish line, held out their hands to the runner, paced along with them and crossed the finish line and gave them their medals and congratulated them. Imagine someone doing all this, a 100 times over. That's what all the kids there did - the event had close to 350 runners, and these kids would have easily done this to the atleast more than half of the runners. The runners, initially surprised at seeing the kids running around, slowly started embracing them and were glad to receive their medals from them and clicked pictures with them. It was such a joy watching the kids run about happily with no worry and enjoying the event as much as we did! 

Both V and I were really glad we took Athi along for this event and are immensely grateful to other volunteering parents who decided to bring their kids along, for all this wouldn't have been possible without those other kids. Teamwork, definitely! We are pretty sure this event would be as memorable to Athi as much as it was to us. It is so true that kids learn a lot of things from observing those around them and the spirit of volunteership that was demonstrated by each volunteer out there, definitely got to the kids. 

Forever thankful to CTC for everything that it has given me :) Proud to say, Athi is also now part of CTC!

The pacer gang!