I did something new and different today, I volunteered at a Marathon, the
ING Georgia Marathon.
I have not yet run my first marathon, but was hoping this would be my first. Because of the fall, and broken collar bone mid year last year, my training was put on hold and so I wasn't ready.
I figured, what better way to still be part of a marathon, and see a bit of what it is like than to volunteer to help. I helped at one of the water stops. I was at the water stop at mile 18, during one of the many hills.
I woke up at 4:45 and was out the door by 5:10. I had anticipated it would take me 45 minutes to drive to where I needed to be, but it wasn't near as far as I thought. I arrived about 5:45 and was the first one there. After about 10 minutes the one in charge of the stop arrived and we started to unload the truck. We had till 8:30 when the elites would come by.
The elites arrived on schedule, I still cannot believe how fast they were moving. We had everything set up like shown in the first pic above, but we were told that the elites would not be stopping by our stop, because they had special water at the next stop. Not sure what the "special water" was, but they still grabbed some water as they flew by, knocking a lot of water off as they tried to grab some. We were not holding anything out because we were told they wouldn't be stopping.
It was a little while before we really saw any of the non-elite runners. It is still absolutely amazing how fast these next were running, they were still running well under 3 hour marathons. They are still considered elite in my book.
The next 3+ hours I was standing with one arm out holding Gatorade. It was a lot of fun watching the runners go by and seeing how many different types of runners were running, all of them very inspiring and making me wish I was ready to run my marathon. We even had one single amputee come by. She was hurting, but it was very inspiring to see her running this marathon. We all have nothing to complain about.
It was a cold morning, and our hands were freezing, but the time still flew by. It was a lot of fun, and I would do it again, however, next time I hope to be running it.
Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow
