In it for the long run

A Parade of “Yes”: Volunteering at a Marathon

Today, I volunteered at the Philadelphia Marathon.

And I recommend this experience to anyone who has run a marathon—or who has not. But marathoners are in the best position to understand other marathoners.

It isn't just about giving back or being good citizens or assuaging your conscience. In fact, please, please... keep one thing a secret from your conscience: volunteering can be addicting. If your conscience learns of this, it might require you to sleep on a bed of nails or walk on hot coals or endure some other such hardship to atone for indulging your addiction.

And it's not just about getting a free shirt and being fed hot chocolate, coffee, and pastries, although I happily received these gifts when I arrived at the Bryn Mawr Running Club aid station in Manayunk, near the 20-mile mark.

It's not just the music, although the strains of “Rocky” and “YMCA” and “Sweet Caroline” were energizing.

It's not even just the time with running buds who have stepped up to volunteer, although volunteering gives runners of all speeds a common project that we can all share in and celebrate.

For me, it's very much the runners—from the speedy souls at the front to the soul-weary at the back. It's the human parade, watching people find that inner “whatever-it-is” that propels them to the finish line.

I don't go for the reverse snobbery that gives greater accolades to the back-of-pack runners—although I've been at the back of the pack much more than at the front. I've trained well and have trained badly for races and I know the difference in the results. I've made more than my share of training mistakes. Some I have learned from. Some I'm still working on. And I look to the elites as models of what people can aspire to, of what people can achieve, of what it takes to win. While some of it is talent, I've met enough elite runners (and, come to think of it, elites in other fields) to know that talent is only part of the equation.

Yet I also feel for those further back, know how it is to wrestle with my imperfect-- sometimes not as motivated as it should be--self. I know how tempting potato chips and pizza can be. I continue to love chocolate more than is good for me. Sometimes all this catches up, and the training is less than it could be. But I know that out on the course, there is that point where I need to commit, to make something happen. Sometimes I decide to pull out, regroup, accept that it isn't my day. And sometimes I need to finish, come what may, regardless of how I feel.

So equipped with this mixture of experience, I take my place next to a table stocked with cups of Gatorade.

First come the wheelchair athletes. Their hands occupied with steering, they take nothing, but sometimes acknowledge our cheers with a brief smile. They lead this parade in many ways, their presence reminding us to rethink the difference between "able-bodied" and "disabled." Often the leaders finish in less than two hours.

Then come the lead runners, flying by, grabbing maybe a sip or two of water, midstride. They too seem to need little or nothing from the volunteers, being lit from within by their own competitive fire. Yet I like to think that they too welcome our presence, our willingness to give them whatever they need to make their race a success. And if they should on rare occasions falter, we're there for them.

The early runners take only the water. I stand waiting, holding out cups and the hope that someone will take the Gatorade I offer. But I know they'll come soon enough, those wanting Gatorade. And I put down my cups for a bit, cheer, ring the cowbell someone gave me, pick up cups, cheer some more, admire the efficient strides, the form, the speed.

As time goes by, the numbers increase, and the pace slows, at first imperceptibly, then precipitously.

It starts with slowing down at the water stations, then walking through them, then walking beyond them.

Those in the three-hour range stream by, still on the run, blinders still on, goals in their eyes.

Then come the four, five, and six-hour marathoners, and increasing evidence of suffering: Faces wincing, strides choppier. Some pick their knees up as we did when children playing soldier—but their aim was not to march, simply to shake the growing stiffness out of their legs. The eyes plead for this race to be over.

Still, some are clearly enjoying themselves—running or walking with friends, breaking into dance steps, high fiving each other. And some lone souls trot along, slowly yes, but steadily, concentrating on the task at hand, accepting cups thrust out at them, and moving on.

Finally come those whose bodies are finished with running. Yet they labor on. They know they are in for a long march to the finish, and they seem to have made some kind of peace with the prospect—or at least have resigned themselves to the pace. Yet even in that resignation, hope persists and the will to move forward. They may reach the finish line to find the food almost gone, the massage tent closed, finishers' medals all given away. All the same, this remains their journey, their sole-searing, soul-searing journey, and they will glean what they can from it.

This is street theatre, drama, pageantry, costume... The lead runners sport flamboyant greens and oranges. Their shoes--the racing flats the less gifted dare not wear in a race that long--dazzle in the sun. Later, the costumes grow more diverse, more whimsical: tutus, kilts, homemade wings, a lime green body suit, a pumpkin, a bathrobe. While some are content to let their race numbers broadcast their names, others have (justifiably in my case) less confidence in the eyesight of onlookers, and etch their names on shirts—sometimes in several different places. Playfulness rules.

After a while, my hands shake from the cold, and I worry I will drop cups. Sometimes when a runner reaches for my outstretched cup, I lose my grip and the Gatorade spills. Yet when a fellow volunteer suggests I go across the street for some coffee or hot chocolate to warm up, while tempted to take the break, I discover instead new energy.

Looking at the determined faces, I find myself loving every single one of these runners, not wanting to miss the moments, not wanting to leave their side. I had been there, where they are.

My slowest marathons were a little over five hours, so I knew the way that pain can take over a whole body, the way that every step leads to a foot cramp, the way that you ask yourself how you can possibly take one more running step, and yet there's still another 10k to go. I could feel their pain in my own muscles. And I wanted to give them not just Gatorade but my presence—to bring smiles to their faces, I dance to the music as I hold out my offering. When they laugh and their steps liven, I feel their renewed energy.

They become my “children” to be encouraged, fed, cared for. In some cases, I think, “I'd pick you up and personally carry you to the finish if I could.” But of course they (and I in the same situation) would refuse such an offer unless they could not stay on their feet. They want to finish on their own dwindling steam.

Sure, they have heard the “You should have trained better” lectures, the “respect the distance” lectures. They may even agree with the principle behind such lectures. I know that my training for my 5.25 mile Great South Bay Swim was inadequate. I decided after some deliberation to go forward anyway. In the last two miles of that swim, feeling the sunburn and jellyfish sting settling in, I discovered a power in me that surprised me, and despite a slower time than I'd have liked, I have no regrets. I had my reasons. Others have theirs. And what we learn is the need to prepare better. We learn it the hard way, learn it in pain. But we learn it and learn something about our own drive.

Many, even slower runners, do in fact “respect the distance,” put in the miles. Or perhaps, although fast, they train hard only to hit a bad patch. Marathons are a roll of the dice, and running them is a gamble—which isn't to say people shouldn't run them, although they are not to be taken on lightly.

I know. I have run marathons with the ever-present hope that THIS one will be my Boston qualifier or at least a sub-whatever effort. That THIS time my training will pay off. That I will show them... whoever they are... that I can do this. Sometimes it doesn't work out. I have dropped out of two marathons, completed seven.

Of the seven I completed, I was fully satisfied with only one: the Boston qualifier I ran in 1995, when everything came together, and the finish clock greeted me with the much trained for time. Some don't even find that one. Yet the marathon tantalizes, invites, says to us after each one, “The next one will be better.” And we believe it. We can't ignore its siren call. It wants us back again. And we come back, often, because sometimes it all does come together. Sometimes there is the magic we dream of. But even when there is not, there is something deep down that we look for in ourselves.

The motivations vary. Some seek to win either overall or in their age group. Some want a particular time. Some just want to finish, to survive, to carry that survival into their lives. To know in those moments at work when deadlines loom and they doubt themselves or at home when they have to stay up with a sick child or an ailing parent that they did this thing on this day and no one can take that from them. And we need those defining moments. Some find them in marathons. Some on backpack trips or bike rides or triathlons or sailing through a storm—or in ways not connected to sports at all.

We need a yes from ourselves when yes seems scarce. That yes, that yes echoes, resounds, fills us with the hope that other yeses await us.

We need this. And in witnessing the many “yeses” today, I take them home with me and feel their pulsing energy. And I can find my own “yeses.”

posted by DPMcManus @ 4:02 PM