Eight easy in the morning.
Did my Eagle Scout project today. We painted 16th of a mile marks on the first 4 miles of the Murdock. The marks are the same as those on the Provo River trail (those of you who are familiar with the trail or its marks can skip the following explanation). The marks start with 4 triangles, then 1 triangle a 16th of a mile later, then 2, then 3, then 4, and the cycle repeats. By allowing accurate. frequent splits, they make running on a trail much nicer. They enable me and my Dad to do speed workouts in the canyon. Without them, or a simliar system, the only way to do quality speed is on the track.
Down to the project.
We started a half hour later than I had planned. Since the marks needed to be protected for 20 mintues after being painted (or so we supposed), I had developed a plan calling for a half-mile long train of paint watchers following the measuring wheel. A team of watchers would guard two sets of marks for five minutes before moving on, and then the next team would move into place, and so forth. The plan called for four teams total, including the lead painting team. We had 12 people total, including me and my Dad, which ended up being just right.
On paper the plan looked good. When I attempted to implement it, however, several flaws were discovered. Since we were running late, I didn't have the time to instruct the volunteers as much as I should have, and some of the problems were due to that. Still, my plan hadn't accounted for certain factors, such as distance. I ended up having to do a lot of yelling. A couple of times, we made Andrew, a homeschooled teenager who ran with us during the summer, run back ro give instructions to the trailing volunteers. Also, the timing of the paint-watching shifts got messed up or misunderstood. The paint dried faster than I had expected, and we ended up moving faster at the end to finish before dark.
Though it had to be adjusted during the project, the plan succeeded. The project was completed, and no one got hurt. I learned a lot about leadership and logistics. Some last-minute organizational help from my Mom made the project much better. I'm glad that I could get it out of the way. The Eagle Project is a big part of the reason that only 7 percent of scouts make Eagle. The thing I will remember most about this project, though, is that I managed to plan and carry out a project where the majority of the workers literally watched paint dry :-).
| 