Manitoba Marathon 2012 is history…and the Bergen & Associates Counselling team finished. I humbly say, “We were AWESOME”!
Sabrina Friesen handing off the timing belt to me…doesn’t she look great at the end of her leg?
Three of the five of us were Manitoba Marathon virgins and thoroughly enjoyed the excitement and the enthusiasm of the events.
The Manitoba Marathon is something that is a pleasure to be experienced:
-The folks out there with cow bells, bicycle bells, jingle bells, drum…or just clapping…your noise is great. I was on the fourth leg of the relay…but then the running crowd was pretty spread out…and I was definitely in the second half of the crowd…but you still had energy for us. Thank you
-The event has magical reciprocity to it. Bystanders cheer on runners. Runners thank bystanders and volunteers. Bystanders call out encouragement..sometimes asking how a person is doing. One runner broke from the street route, and ran off to the side to kiss three little children and a grandma by the side of the road…her kids were clearly very proud of mama.
Runners yell back to the crowd…even ones close to the lead took time to interact with the crowd. One full marathoner…at about Mile 15 yells out with a huge double armed pointing action to the fellow beside him: “Give it up for Mike!” And the crowd gives it up in response…a minute later, another runner comes along and yells out, “Did you see Mike!” like we’d just all seen someone pretty special. Hey Mike, did you feel the love?
-The signs and posters…Little babies having signs on their stroller…”My dad is the best runner and dad”. I liked, “Go, insert your name here, go” almost as much as “”Go, random stranger, go!” Lots of clever cheering.
-the bands were great…running cords out from local restaurants or garages to plug in amps, guitars, and microphones. Awesome how the bands played and played.
-The volunteers at the water stations from age 3 to 93…holding out sponges, Gatorade, and water. Cheerful and helpful. Can’t say enough about all the volunteers
-The encouragement of strangers…bystanders and runners alike. Gosh, if we would allow ourselves and each other to be as encouraging to each other as a larger community like we do this day…the world would indeed be a different place. I slowed to a walk for a few steps at one point because of some pain…and as a runner lopes by, he shouts encouragement to me…it wasn’t so hard to pick up the pace.
- Coming in the home stretch on my leg, there was a guy behind me breathing very loudly and laboriously…he was sucking air big time. He didn’t have anything left. A guy with a military T-Shirt was running nearby…clearly this leg was no big deal to him. He joins up with tired guy, and talks him through the last 400 metres…as I tag along to listen (and leech off his encouragement…”Just around this corner…not much farther…you’re almost there…you’re totally gonna make it…it’s downhill from here, see?…piece of cake…you’re gonna get there…just a little bit more….” And inbetween, tired guy, in some sort of thick accent, can only occasionally squeeze out an airy, desperate, “Yes….yes…yes…”
Our team (minus Kevin, celebrating Father’s Day and his first marathon with out of town family) gathered for lunch at the office after to share our stories in the way of excited children eager to share their mornings.
Michael told us a great story.
Michael was running the first leg, handing the timing belt off to Kevin before continuing on to finish his first half marathon.
Michael is a young fit guy who has only been training for about 3 months…and he decided he was going to shoot for a half marathon time of 2 hours.
For a first marathon…that’s a pretty challenging time he picked…but he’s the sort of fellow that works hard to get to meet his set goals.
So he sees the two hour pace bunny and follows those rabbit ears. He’s working hard, but pleased with himself that he’s keeping up.
When he gets to the exchange to pass the relay timing belt to Kevin…he can’t find him. Kevin isn’t standing in the spot designated for our number…and Michael spends three or four minutes pacing back and forth to find him…eventually he runs to the very end of the relay exchange zone and finds Kevin…hand him the belt and he continues on…but the pace bunny’s ears have disappeared beyond the horizon.
Michael’s no quitter…and he wants the two hour time, and he knows he’s off the pace. So, to get back on the pace, he starts chasing the two hour pace bunny to catch up to him. He thinks it takes a couple of miles…but manages to make up the three or four minutes to be able to join the two hour group again. (I got the distinct impression he didn’t realize what a big deal it is to make up three or four minutes of head start in the middle of a race)
So…now’s he caught up with the two hour pace bunny and is running with them…but he has to slow down now to stay with the group. He realizes that the two hour pace isn’t challenging him.
He was running a faster pace to catch up…and now the two hour pace feels slow to him…he knows he can go faster…cuz the “catch up” pace was tolerable.
What was interesting to him as he told the story to us, was that he only knew that he was capable of more than the two hour time because of the unexpected problems that held him up at the relay exchange.
Michael blew past the pace bunny and finished his first half with a time of one hour and fifty seven minutes, eighteen seconds (including the three or four minutes he wandered around looking for Kevin)…and surprised and impressed himself with the time…”There’s a lesson in there” he softly mused as he told the story.
-I was running behind this guy…looked to be in his 70’s, for a long while…this picture was taken at mile 19 of the race. This fellow had a white bib…meaning he was running the whole marathon himself…I was on about my fourth mile.
He looked tired, but was deceptively hard to pass. …I was able to pass him on the bridge here finally…but noticed that during the next water station, he slipped by me…and I had to work to pass him again. Un-buh-liev-able
The demonstration of the ability of the human spirit to persevere was incredible in this fellow and so many others that we saw today.
We finished 530th as team. Well back in the pack. But we finished with smiles on our faces.
When Roshonna first tossed the idea around of entering, the greatest reason for reluctance was our shyness around our own abilities…each of us concerned that we would be too slow for the others, that we would drag our team’s time down. After we realized our common concern, we reassured each other that our time wasn’t an important factor, and that no one would be judged for their time.
So we signed up. That took courage.
We trained. That took perseverance.
We showed up. That was a decision.
And we participated. And that was fun.
We were there. We were part of the action. We experienced the joy.
We were part of a team of five, and part of a community of thousands that were supportive and encouraging.
We won this morning.
We did it!
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