To Your Marks - 2006 MCM

This was the day! After training for about a year I kinda expected a little more. Maybe some angels with trumpets and harps. Maybe a group of people applauding my every move. Nope, none of that. Just another morning. I didn’t have trouble sleeping the night before. I didn’t wake up shacking in excitement and anticipation. I just got up, did my morning routine and headed to the Metro. We had been told that Metro would be packed with runners and spectators. That wasn’t the case. We saw a few people with runners bags, but not enough to overwhelm the stations. Going into DC ended up being no problem at all.

When we got there Olga and I got off at the Pentagon stop and walked towards Runners Village (a little north of the Pentagon). We were trying to me meet up with the other runners from work. We were pretty impressed with the Runners Village. There was a place for people to stretch (mats included) and UPS trucks for us to store stuff while we ran. There were also porta-johns as far as the eye could see. In front of the porta-johns were lines of people waiting to lighten their loads, so to speak.

We passed the Runner’s Village and headed for the meeting place. We were able to meet up with everyone there. One of the other runners gave Olga and me name tags he had made up. The idea was to pin them to our shirts so the spectators could call out our names when we ran passed. That was a Godsend. I got a lot of energy hearing people call my name and shout words of encouragement. I’m really glad he hooked us up with the tags.

Two of the runners were in the first wave, so we wished them a good run. Then Olga and I headed back to Runner’s Village to drop our stuff off. While we were back in the Village I ran into a friend from church who was also running. It was his first time for the marathon too. We wished each other luck, then headed out our separate ways. After dropping our stuff off Olga and I went back towards the starting line.

We weren’t really sure where the starting line was. So we just followed the flow of the crowd. The more crowded it got, the more we thought we were in the right place. Eventually we were able to see the big red inflatable arches that marked the start line. Then we heard the announcer telling us what was happening. It was pretty exciting standing in the crowd of runners waiting to start the race. There were spectators on the sides making noise and holding up signs. There were runners in costumes and runners holding big patriotic flags. It was a party.

A few minutes before our scheduled send off the announcer came on and told us there was a medical emergency and we had to wait a while. Someone from the first wave of runners had a heart attack at the start line and they were taking care of him. Later I heard that he was taken to the hospital and recovered.

Before we knew it, the announcer was back on saying, “Runners, to your marks….” There was a pop in the distance and the crowd started moving forward. We had been told that the crowd would stay pretty tight for the first five or six miles. I was really looking forward to not having to run the first few miles because of the crowds. That ended up not being the case. We had plenty of room to run even before we got to the starting line. I was not amused.

The starting line was marked with giant red inflatable arches. Directly after the arches were chips mats. In order to get an accurate time each runner is given a computer chip that they attach to their shoes. As they pass certain points there are mats that read the chip and record our times. The chip time is the official time for the race. I like this, because it’s accurate. There was about eight minutes from the start of our wave until we actually crossed the start line. With thirty four thousand people running the chip is the only accurate way to go.

When we ran across the starting line we were watching out for my family. They were planning to be there for the start, but we weren’t sure exactly where. We eventually saw my mother holding a big homemade sign. She had crawled through some bushes and was sitting on top of an overpass that the runners went under. We waved and she saw us.

The run had started and we were off into Northern Virginia.