Dave and I helped coordinate the Friends of the Desert Mountains 5K Run held at the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument Visitors Center in Palm Desert. The run takes place on the Randall Henderson Trail.
Dave and I took responsibility for placing flags along the course to help direct runners who weren't familiar with the trail. On Friday before the run we made a final check of trail conditions, but unfortunately because the Randall Henderson has heavy use we couldn't place the flags out the night before.
Saturday morning we were at the Visitor's Center at 5:15 am to place flags on the trail. We wanted to give ourselves enough time to complete the walk through and still be able to cool off before the race started at 7:30.
Dave and I with Theresa who started the trail run a number of years ago. We plan on working with her to continue growing race participation and make it one of the main events during the FODM Wildflower Festival. In 2019 there were about 70+ participants and this year the number was up to over 100 runners/walkers.
Here are a couple of pictures taken along the course as I was running.
It takes an army of volunteers to make these events run smoothly. FODM is lucky to have so many people willing to donate their time.
I'm hoping this becomes our signature volunteer event each year during the Wildflower Festival.