Ironman 2016 at Lake Placid

             

I love to volunteer! Four years ago, my family started to travel to Lake Placid, NY in the winter to ski and to see the annual ice festival. We loved Lake Placid so much, that we started to travel there in the summer months. Our family is an active family and have been to several Half-Ironman events. We have had friends from the running and biking community that we wanted to support in the full Ironman event at Lake Placid in July. So, it has been tradition to register, in February, as a volunteer at the Lake Placid Ironman event. If you are not familiar with an Ironman, let me shed some light on the topic. An Ironman is a triathlon, which is a race that has 3 events, one after the other. They are: swimming, biking, and running. The swim is 2.4 miles, 112 miles of biking, and a full marathon, which is 26.2 miles of running. That is a grand total of 140.6 miles. It takes many people a year to train for this race. For many, it is a bucket list event, but for others, it is their job. My family loves to volunteer at this event for several reasons. They love that volunteers get fed all day long. Well, maybe my teenager seem to love the food a bit more than I do. The aura in the air at Lake Placid is contagious and inspiring to athletes and non-athletes. Lake Placid is known for hosting the 1980 Winter Olympics. Many sport teams go up to Lake Placid, year round, to train for their sport. There are the ski jumps, the olympic museum, the famous olympic ice rink where the U.S.A. beat the Soviet Union in a hockey game, hiking trails, Lake Saranac, and great food to experience. For the past years, I have chosen the same volunteer station, Special Needs Bag Station for the cyclists. After riding one loop of the 112 bike course, cyclists may stop and dig through their personal bags for hydration, nutrition, change of clothes, etc. We are there to serve them. You can see in the above picture that we meet the athletes on the course and hold their bike steady as they rummage through their special needs bag. Many athletes want to talk, need encouragement, need nutrition, or simply want to say, "Thank you." To my complete surprise, some athletes give their bike handler volunteer a Ziploc bag with a $5 gift card and a note of thanks. The best thing about volunteering at this event is being able to work and serve the athletes and helping them become the next Ironman. It is truly an experience to be had by all! 

Do you do something that you feel everybody should experience at least one time in their life? What is it and why do you feel this is an experience for everybody?

VOCABULARY

annual (adjective) -- happening once a year

tradition (noun) -- a way of thinking, behaving, or doing something that has been used by the people in a particular group, family, etc., for a long time

familiar (adjective) -- heard, seen, or experienced often

aura (noun) -- a special feeling that someone gets from a place, person, or thing

contagious (adjective) -- able to be passed from one person to another by touching; able to get something like a feeling from a place or experience

inspiring (adjective) --  causing people to want to do or create something or to lead better lives

cyclist (noun) -- a person that rides a bike

hydration (noun) -- having a healthy amount of water in the body

rummage (verb) -- to search for something; to dig deep in search for a specific item

VOCABULARY EXERCISE

Please unscramble the following vocabulary words.

1. raau _____________________________                     6. margemu _______________________

2. nythorniad _________________________                  7.  ulnana     _______________________

3. lairmifa   __________________________                   8. dirttoina   _______________________

4. lyitscc  ____________________________                  9. springiin  _______________________

5. goatscinuo _________________________

GRAMMAR POINT

An adjective is a word that describes a person, place, or thing. Possession is the state of owning something. Put these two items together and you have "Possessive Adjective". A possessive adjective shows that someone owns something or someone. My, your, his, her, it's, our, your, their are all possessive adjectives. Please reread my above post about Ironman. Find and list the possessive adjectives in the entry. How many of each possessive adjective did you find? Use 3 different possessive adjectives and compose 3 sentences that are of the same topic. For example, you may want to write 3 sentences about your summer vacation, or last night's dinner, or a difficult class.