Little Miss Runner Pants

we had entirely too much fun for people standing out in the sometimes frigid, sometimes warm november air handing out carbs and calories in all their forms.
(seriously, our stop was a veritable smorgasbord of treats for the runners....and the volunteers!)

the runners were....in a word..... cute. and i mean cute ranging from "hey hi hello there, here's my number" to "omg he's the most precious 80 year old i've ever met".... it was craziness.

our stop was mile 2, 5ish, 11, 18ish, and 24...ish. (yeah. we were clearly on top of things, we never really knew what mile we were on, but it turned out not to be that big of a deal..... seeing as how about a third of the runners got lost and circled back 90 times... we were miles 2-27 for some people, lets put it that way!)

it started out with Stripe Shirt and i (hoorah, the dynamic duo comes together again to rule another day!) in a shouting match at the runners...."5K to the left"....."1/2 and Full M'thon to the right...." (okay. it doesnt sound funny... but it was. just trust me on this one!!)
we then competed for runners with our water, or gatorade, depending on who you were.....i preferred to hand out the water with my rousing "WAY TO GO-H20" chant... as running shoes wooed his runners with his "best gatorade in the county"... he was most def'ly in the lead, until i broke out "RUN LIKE A MONKEY, EAT A BANANA"....(yes. as i attempted to hand out cut-up bananas)

strangely enough, nobody took me up on my offer. hmmm...

we met our rather rude "you should have had ice" runners, and our sweet "thanks so much for being out here runners"...we met a man who was running his 217th marathon... was turning 52 later in the month, and was running 52 marathons in 52 weeks.... and was on his 147th consecutive month for having run a marathon.
he was friggin amazing. he stopped, on mile 18 and 24, for a fajita. it was awesome.

we met an 80 year old who had a really amazing story as well, but i completely forget what it was. but he was cool.

there was the husband and wife duo that also stopped for a fajita (yeah... we made fajitas. that were actually for us, the volunteers, but then runners would run right up to the grill and start stuffing their faces, i mean what could you do but glop on some guacamole and laugh, ya know?!) anyway, so they're eating, and the guy is just outta control, i was almost sickened watching him shove the entire tortilla with the meat and the onions, etc, in his face.... his mouth was buldging at the seams, and his wife was like "come on, come on, lets go" and he turns to her and goes "WAIT.....I WANT A COOKIE"...

we about died.

there were, as i alluded to earlier, some amazingly gorgeous men... and we wasted no time in telling them so. we even debated on if we should get a marker out and write our numbers on the cups as we handed them out... but we were ill-prepared. no marker on the premesis. damn shame too, i tell ya what....

lets see, what else??!?...

there was music... lots of music. and dancing. there was fun with latex gloves as one of the sons of the volunteers put a glove down his pants, fingers flopping out and ran around saying "i'm a cow...i'm a cow....i have udders".... it was a riot. the poor guy's mother will just be thrilled with all the new things we taught him!

but mostly, it was just fun. it was awesome to see the runners, since we saw them so many times over the course of the race, they got into the hilarity of our pit-stop and one of the older ladies even stopped to wiggle her hips a bit... apparently any reason to stop running at the time was a good reason in her book.

and i felt like i finally belonged to a group of people that "got it".... we all stood around talking about our marathons, what we've done, what we want to do... our injuries and when's the last time we've run...when will be the next. how frusterating it is not to be able to run, and how nerve-racking it is not to know if you're healed yet.

and..... we talked about swimming. and biking. and triathlons. i asked the triathlon coach (who is crazy in a we'll probably get along really well kind of a way) about what it takes to train for a triathlon, and she assured me its not as scary as it seems. we talked about olympic distance tri's (which i've never known, and now i do, and hello....TOTALLY) and she attmepted to reel me in for 2006.

i resisted.... a bit. (though she got the wheels turning...)

and it was an awesome day. one of those that just leaves ya smiling...

and so thats what i am. i'm smiling, gearing up to try running this week (possibly) and once again thanking God i ever got myself into this whole Marathon/Running mess. i couldn't have made a better decision, and i can't wait to start the whole thing all over again!