First of all...the most recent: The City of Oaks Marathon and Half!
I volunteered for this awesome event last night and OMG it was so much fun.
I was scheduled to be a course monitor for which I got the awesome swag you saw in an earlier post. I showed up to my intersection on Hillsborough St in downtown Raleigh at 6am and it was COLD! I sat in my car as long as I could.
I met my partner, CostaRica and we sat in our chairs side-by-side waiting for some action. Ms. CostaRica was so nice. We chatted about how we got into running and she told me that her and her husband were expecting their first child! I eventually had to go get my sleeping bag out of the trunk (hooray for never cleaning it out!) and bundled up in my chair and snoozed a little.
Finally we started to see people running in our direction! Little people! It was the kids mile run! They were so cute running...some with parents...some by themselves. I saw some of them afterwards with their big medal and they were so proud of themselves!
We sat around a bit more and finally the fast runners started trickling past. I stood in the middle of the street and directed traffic. I clapped and cheered for all of the runners. It was so much fun yelling their bib numbers and giving them encouragement. I had so many runners thank me for being there to which I just told them that they were the real inspiration. I saw people who looked fresh as a daisy...and people who looked like they couldn't take another step. I tried my best to encourage them all.
Run away from the crazy lady!
I wasn't far from the finish line so lots of runners asked me how far they had left. I was happy to be the one to tell them only .1 of a mile! I told them to run towards the donuts and beer! I told them that they looked awesome and that they should finish strong because they've got this! I told some runners that their feet were on fire they were running so fast! And others that they were killing it!
I saw a dad who had finished and was wearing his medal. I congratulated him on finishing and he told me that his daughters had surprised him at the finish line and that he didn't know they were coming. I could see how much this meant to him by the tears of joy in his eyes. That made me tear up just a bit.
Finally...6 hours after the roads had opened back up and I was getting ready to leave...I saw that there were still runners out on the course, now running on the sidewalk. I stopped on the other side of the street and cheered as loud as I could for those last runners who had been running for 6+ hours! They were amazing...talk about giving it everything you've got!
Some runners started to pass as I was taking pictures...so this is me in action!
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