Race Day

I am mostly going to post pictures of the events... Everything went extremely well all things considered. I awoke to a grey rainy morning first of all- thus we had to change the entire arrangement of the stage set-up. The speakers and sound system had to be under cover instead of where we planned to put them. The banner and balloon hanging people also had to improvise their set-ups within the entry way area of the Cultural House so that they could be under cover. Registration for the race,(recieving their numbers etc.)and race set-up was taken care of by the experienced sports committee and came together very well. Russians are experienced at improvising.
Second thing was that the announcer lady was losing her voice. She still did her part, but it was rough at first.
A lot of good things happened. The turn out was pretty good inspite of the rain. It was mostly youth though so it was VERY lucky that we picked the more young band/local singing group to entertain. Almost everyone stayed around for the whole activity.
The t-shirts became all the more of a hit since the mayor had banned them. Everyone who ran in the race got one (no elementary school kids)at the end of the awards ceremony, as well as all the volunteers. The adults who helped organise the activity were just as excited as the kids to get a shirt. Everyone wanted to see and especially wear "the shirt that the mayor wouldn't allow"... It was quite a hit! Tons of people put theirs on right away and I saw people wearing them in the street throughout the afternoon and evening.
Russians have this saying: "the forbidden fruit is the sweetest" and it definately held true on the race day.