On Sunday I had my first opportunity to be a spectator at the Royal Parks Half Marathon. The start and finish were in Hyde Park in London. I’d only been a spectator at the London to Brighton Bike ride, never at a running event. I was quite excited and looking forward to experiencing the race from behind the supporter’s barriers.
The first conundrum of being a spectator is what do you wear? Is it sunny, rainy or windy. I packed for all eventualities, a gore-tex coat and several layers. It turned out to be quite hot and sunny, I was hot all day and forgot my sunglasses.
The role of supporter/spectator doesn’t really start until your runner starts stripping off clothes and changing shoes, it’s at that point you offer to pack their stuff in your rucksack which you’ve conveniently left half empty. The supporter isn’t allowed to demand coffee or tea before the race starts, your role is to be supportive, check your runner is hydrated and fuelled and be supportive some more.
Once your runner has begun to move towards the start line, you’re now expected to take pre-race photographs and be supportive. On Sunday my runner had left his garmin at home, it isn’t your role as a supportive supporter to say things like ‘oh what a muppet’ or other less supportive phrases such as ‘you’re going to have a terrible race’. Instead I opted for the semi-supportive-subliminal approach, ‘You’ll probably run much better without it’, ‘You’ll run how you feel’, ‘You might even get a PB’, ‘At least you have your running shoes’!
After your runner has moved to the start line, it’s now your role to find a spot along the beginning of the route where you can begin the important job of ‘cheering’. We found a good spot just past the start, we assembled our Vuvuzelas and awaited the start of the race.
Once the race kicked off we blew our Vuvuzelas heartily and shouted and waved and clapped at all the runners as they ran past. We stopped to cheer a few thousand runners on their way before moving to the 6 mile point for the next bit of cheering. My runner is quite fast so we hot-footed it across the park to reach a good spot for more vuvuzelaing and loud supporting. At around the 45 minute mark, my garmin-less runner came steaming down the path, looking hot, it is at that point we vuvuzelaed very loud and shouted and cheered. Our runner looked horrified at our loud performance and yet we carried on, supporting and cheering.
We waited to see him come past across the other side of the road and had now been cheering on for over an hour, we hadn’t had coffee or lucozade or a gel, vuvuzelas can cause injury, light-headedness and dehydration. Dangerously we ignored this call for hydration and food and hurried to the finish line to await the arrival of our champion and for more supporting.
Once we’d walked over to the finish, we found a spot, it was very crowded and we jostled to get a good view. I was on tiptoe trying to see over the heads of people in front, it was quite tight and there wasn’t much room, we eventually say him cross the line in 1:36. We were exhausted, we’d had no food or drink, physically shattered, oxygen depleted and yet the task of being supportive hadn’t ended.
We rendezvoused with our runner congratulating him on a fantastic race, gave him a banana, some water and dried him off, helped him change into fresh clothes and we were on our way home.
The supportive role didn’t end there, post race banter and deconstructing the day was another job to do as was checking he’d had enough to drink and eat and providing a good lunch for him afterwards. Then there was the post race up-loading of photographs and next day checking how his recovery was going.
I’ve got to be honest, I’ve run lots of races and taken part in events when you feel pretty tired, but you have gels, lucozade and adrenalin to get you through; On Sunday we had time for a toilet stop, nothing else! I was exhausted, really tired, emotionally and physically. But...it was fun and I’d happily not take part in a race again just to feel the enormous pride felt as you see your runner cross the line and the overwhelming joy in discovering they crossed the line in 402nd place out of 12,000 runners. Runners are fully aware of how much support spurs you on in a tough race, as a runner I’m now really appreciative of the support I’ve had, it’s hardcore, exhausting but great fun!
As a practised marathon supporter I can empathise - it is very stressful ensuring you are in all the agreed cheering points at the appropriate time, spotting your runner and cheering appropriately whilst trying to take an awesome photo of your runner looking great! In general though I draw the line at carrying said runner's additional clothing around as there's generally not enough room in my rucksack for that after I've included all my layers for every eventuality weatherwise! ;)
ReplyDeleteIt is fun though! :)