There are alot of volunteers that donate their time, energy, and talents to making a road race happen. These people do things behind the scenes and most times receive a mention, or sometimes, not even that. It's not just the organizers that make an event happen. It's also the volunteers that believe enough in the cause that money is being raised for or respect the organizers enough to want to help that truly make things happen. Two examples pictured here are a small number of the total group of volunteers(the ones in the yellow shirts) that helped at the GE 5k Road Race To Benefit the Petit Family Foundation in Plainville, Ct. on July 19th. Then there was Jamie who was at the Shrewsbury 5k on the 18th in Shrewsbury, Ma.. Jamie did free massages on the runners before and after the race. Now you might argue that, because she represented the Second Sunrise Massage Therapy business that she was there just to "drum" up business. As a small business owner myself I can only hope she got some new business out of the day. But think for a minute... the majority of the runners that come to a road race probably don't come from the town the road race is in... so give people like Jamie the credit they deserve for giving up their time to help YOU out. The next time you go to a road race and something doesn't go quite to YOUR perfection level---remember--- the volunteers you might be getting mad at or that you give grief to are not being paid to take you lip. Calm down and work with them they are nice enough to be there UNPAID to give you a day to run.