The rules of cheering at a marathon

Yesterday was the Music City Marathon and Half-marathon. Since I only fancy myself a runner of short distances, I’m sort of in awe of these people who can actually run a marathon. Like Tim, my choir director who created his own “fun run” marathon in October and finished yesterday despite the onset of leg cramps.

I also had a lot of friends running or walk/jogging the half marathon. So, Mindy (unexpectedly here instead of in Somerset, Ky., for a dress fitting) and I decided we needed to find a place along the route and cheer people on. We discovered that there was a “cheer” station along the route that was actually near Mindy’s house, so we could park at her house and walk over without having to pay for parking or deal with street closures. We got there around 7:50 a.m. and started looking for people we knew.

OK, that was HARD! There were like a hundred million runners and walkers in this race. We were at the 6 mile mark, so we figured by the time we got there, speedy Tim had already gone past. And we knew from a friend who was volunteering for the race that our friend Alisha was in corral 27 and Wendi, Mindy’s roommate, and Amy, a friend from church, was in corral 30. We knew that my coworker Emily and a girl we used to go to church with, Annie, were also running.

We found ourselves searching the crowds for familiar faces, which was hard. I saw Annie speed past and yelled for her, though I don’t think she heard us. We saw Emily next, and I yelled for her, and again, nothing. She didn’t hear us. We had alerted Wendi via text where we were and when we saw her come around the corner, got so excited. We yelled for her and encouraged her to keep running and gave each other five and everything. It was great! (She ran the whole thing and finished well!) Later, a guy we know who used to live here ran by and surprised us. We saw him and were so confused, then just sort of yelled, “Go Michael Mason!” When we saw Alisha, my new running buddy, I got so excited I was literally jumping up and down. I think I was more excited about cheering for her than she was in seeing us! Finally, we saw Amy and got to chat with her a little as she walked past.

It was a lot of fun to see the people with their names written on their shirts or arms or tiaras or wherever and to cheer for them by name. I’d pick out the person I thought looked like they were having the hardest time and encourage them. So many were very appreciative. It actually made me think about that verse in Hebrews about “such a cloud of witnesses.” (I know, I know. This is just part of who I am.)

But all of this made Mindy and I come up with some rules to guide cheering for people running long distances.

1. Bring signs, noisemakers, etc., so that you don’t have to clap or yell the whole time. You will get tired.

2. Make distinctive shirts for all the people you know who will be running in the race. That way, you’ll be able to pick them out easily. We’re thinking neon tie-dye with random artwork, like watermelons or something.

3. Find a good place on the course to stand. We were at a turn that the runners soon realized was downhill and in the shade. The look on their faces as they realized this was beautiful!

4. You probably don’t want to be eating as the runners go past. They don’t give you very nice looks! 🙂