Elite runners and non-professionals, sponsors and volunteers, families and random spectators gathered on Patriot’s Day, April 18, along the route of the 2011 Boston Marathon. Naturally, the Tufts Jumbos couldn’t miss this exciting sports celebration and sent their support in the form of the President’s Marathon Team, as well as many student volunteers.
Marathon Monday began early for the Tufts volunteers, who were transported from campus to three water stations along the course and the clothing return in the finish area, which was where my friends and I had signed up to volunteer. The few sleepy faces lightened up as everyone got off at the designated areas and heard the enthusiasm in the voices of our supervisors. People lined up to receive their passes and the coveted volunteer jackets. This year, they were especially stylish in grass green and black, matching the fresh spring atmosphere. In fact, these cool jackets were the inspiration for students such as freshman Ashley Scarfo to volunteer in the first place. Ashley had never seen the Marathon before and wanted to take home an object that would remind her of her participation in “this big production.”
Once everyone was assigned to their buses, we spent some time figuring out the order of the athletes’ hundreds of bags of warm-up clothing. Each bag came with the owner’s name, hometown and bib number. A few sneaky looks at the name tags were enough to reveal that runners came from all US states, many were Canadian and there were some from remote places like Russia, Brazil and Denmark. We were surprised to find out that the runners’ numbers actually corresponded to their qualifying time. In other words, the lower their bib and bus numbers, the faster they were supposed to run the 26.2-mile (42km) long course.
By 12:30pm, the fastest runners had arrived. At first, they were only a few lonely individuals, who were cheered by the crowds of volunteers. Steadily, more and more people began arriving. Soon we were all back on the buses. We looked out of the windows for a runner’s number, rushed back in and sorted through the piles of bags, murmuring the desired number in hopes to find it more quickly.
“5678, 5678, where is it?! I can’t find it… Have you guys seen 5678?”
Some athletes were lucky because we spotted their bags right away, but others had to wait for several minutes. I felt especially bad for this one exhausted man in yellow, whose bag was misplaced at the back of the bus. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t find your bag. I’ll keep looking for it, while I’m helping someone else. Please be patient. Thank you.” Some athletes couldn’t wait, so they even got on the bus and asked to look for their belongings themselves, as if they could find them before us.
The street was slowly flooded with even more runners – all wrapped in aluminum blankets and holding on to water bottles and light food. The initial wave passed and we were actually able to hear what was going on around us. Medical volunteers were walking around with wheelchairs. A supervisor with a microphone was directing the runners to the areas where they could see their families. Other volunteers in green jackets were distributing water bottles and shouting tirelessly: “Good job! Congratulations!”
As the stress of having a crowd of tired runners waiting under your bus window got relieved slowly, we finally found the bag belonging to the man in yellow. Once we were down to 15-20 pieces, some of us stepped outside of the bus. At this point, we could really feel the friendly mood on the street. As junior Chris Walczyszyn put it, “we were all involved in the general excitement at the final stage of the marathon.” Friends were limping side by side, taking pictures of their achievement and showing off their medals. Everyone could feel the unique atmosphere of support and togetherness between the more than 26,000 athletes and the hundreds of volunteers.
Before we knew it, the last few bags were collected in big boxes and we were free to leave. Unwilling to let go of this sweet thrill, we wandered around the family meeting area for some time. We were hoping to meet some Tufts marathon runners and give them Jumbo hugs, but the crowd was probably too big.
The tiredness and pain in the feet finally hit us as we headed to the subway station. During the T ride to Davis, we napped a little, dreaming about next year, when we are definitely coming back to volunteer or even better, run the Boston Marathon.
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2011 Boston Marathon Winners
Women – Caroline Kilel (Kenya) – 2:22:36h
Men – Geoffrey Mutai (Kenya) – 2:03:01h
Sources: http://raceday.baa.org/Default.html