Time for a break

5 days of shifts come to an end and there is a day of rest (though it isn't a Sunday) and I have been lucky enough to get tickets for the Saturday evening athletics, so off to the QEOP yet again this time to spectate and see if I can spot my Team GB athletes taking part and winning medals. I know the team have targets to achieve, it all goes hand in hand with the funding.
I do feel very invested in these athletes already having worked with them for the past week and it does make the spectating experience that much more pleasurable and exciting.

I was very lucky to be able to get into the Stadium at the end of shift on Friday night to see Hannah Cockroft break the world record at 100m and win a World Gold, with Kare Adenegan taking the Silver. Lots of whooping and hollering ensued, naturally. And also, over on the Club Throw Gemma Prescott picked up a Bronze in her category.

So a full set of colours on the first evening and many more opportunities to come.

So what's been happening over the past few days? Well I have been furniture removing and reorganising to make the athletes lounge more homely, unloading water and yogurts and rice pots into the athletes room and fridge (well freezer, as there was no fridge available, so have to keep checking it's not frozen).
Had to take a stroll across to another hotel in Stratford to pick up a package delivered there by mistake, luckily I knew where it was, so was a race against the clock to see how quickly I could be there and back. (Little things).

Spend an hour or two sorting out games tickets to be allocated to team staff for both the Para and the IAAF Championships, and putting special Para Games tags into rucksacks for the athletes to collect as a gift from Asics. Not sure all of them were keen to have them with the pink on though.

We've had luggage deliveries (for the athletes) to allocate to their rooms before they arrived, we've sorted their competition bibs ready for them to add to their vests etc, and each athlete has been given a hand stitched GB flag, with a message included from a member of the public, wishing them well and good luck.

A second trip across to St Pancras on the Javelin and more athletes collected, plus had an emergency dash in a "uber" across to Lee Valley Athletic Track to deliver a left behind "blade" for a competing athlete. Amazingly some of the roads are still the same as when I drove in the Paralympics in 2012 and I was telling the driver all about it and what was where back then. Ah the memories.

In between all that I managed to get across to the Uniform Collection centre for the remainder of my kit, which surprisingly actually fit quite nicely. And also headed to workforce check-in to find out what gifts we would be getting, (more out of curiosity than anything as other volunteers had been speaking about them) and they ended up giving us the lot and marking our cards for it, so we don't end up getting doubles. Now to try setting up the pedometer as I am sure we are well over our 10000 a day.

After shift heading across to the track we bumped into no other than Dave Moorcroft and a few others from the Join In team, so managed a few minutes chat. Time for a quick selfie, and then we were off. (Borrowed this pic from Mary as mine was rubbish, though I really wish I'd kept my sunglasses on for the piccie)

Catch you soon :-)