Anyway, I keep forgetting to remember, my favorite part of the 1/2 Marathon was the signs and the people along the way! I wish I could have taken pictures of some of it but I will do my best to re-create the run through the sideshow!
First, as I said before I started with my brother! As we crossed the start line to the left there were tons of people wearing dark gray shirts that said Baker, in orange! I of course knew that they were there to cheer me on specifically, Go BU! I saw them a few times and I actually think someone with the last name Baker was running near me, but it was fun!
Along the first part of the run lots of people had noise makers and were yelling go runners! It had me thinking, were they yelling that specifically at the people running or did the people walking (in my way!) get pleasure from the runner yell? Anyway it was nice to start with people yelling at you!The first water station I bypassed, but the water people were really excited. One had a serious coach voice and it took me straight back to high school basketball. I think I ran really hard for at least a half mile after he yelled. He was so good I wanted to take him along and just have him yell when I was feeling bored or distracted!
For the first few miles the signs were mostly directed at individual people. One girl spotted the person she had a sign for and started yelling about the time I came up near the curb. I mentioned to her that the sign was upside-down. I mean if you spend the effort to make a specific sign I would at least want someone to tell me I was holding it wrong! She thanked me and went on yelling.
"Run Kelly, we are so proud of you" only it was upside-down, much funnier!
All of this is through downtown, but neighborhoods are when it got fun, well if torture is your idea of fun! These people were just lounging in their front yards with mimosas and martinis nicely stationed on tables in the front yard. I mean if you can't leave your house for a few hours on a Saturday morning why not torture the people who are keeping you locked in?!
One of these houses was not like the others, it looked like an off campus frat house or something very much similar. I hope that gives you an idea, they had a broken window upstairs and the porch was in disrepair. They were drinking cheap beer not the requisite champagne on ice in the silver bucket. Again I hope you get the idea. This house had one of my favorites:
"Brett and Todd stop running and fix our house." stapled to a tree, and written on a box.
At the end of this street, when we turned left there were a few people holding signs pointing right, this was getting toward half way for the 1/2ers and as if we had not just come out of torture central with the mimosas this sign said free beer. (it was pointing the wrong way, but I genuinely think there was beer the other way people were asking serious questions)
Then we went toward a very narrow street and funny signs started popping up everywhere! It was time to get a laugh at the expense of these people who have chosen to run for an entire morning. I guess the spectators knew we did not need encouragement at the point, we were well aware of the crazy nature of what we were doing, we needed humor (or booze).
"It was really early when I got up this morning and made this sign too!"
"I don't do marathons, I do a marathon runner." This was a t-shirt but still made me laugh!
"Chaffe now, care later"
"Feel the chaffe"
"Bill, puke here" Gift bag attached to this one
"Hurry up my legs hurt"
"Should I be worried about what is chasing all you people?" There were a few with different variations of this idea.
"It was hard making this sign too"
"Free High 5s" And lots of people just hanging out willing to high five runners along the way!
A few of the signs had the priceless theme:
"Race entry- $95
Running Shoes $95
Pride- Priceless" Again there were a few variations on the theme!
There was also a pretty intense hill about this point. I say intense in relation to how many people stopped running right in front of me and killed my hill mojo! This is the only time I have been thankful that my neighborhood is so hilly! The people along this hill were giving us distance to the top and encouragement, and there was another coach voice that caught my attention, as if I were not trying hard enough to get up the hill already!
"This hill is as bad as it seems, accept the suck"
More Chaffe related signs here, I guess they knew the beginning was not the place for chaffe signs!
As I said before the personal signs seemed to be more toward the beginning, but here there were a few lots of "GO MOM, We are proud of you"
"Run Forrest Run" I think that this was actually a personal sign and just funny coincidence that the most over done running joke was the same as his name!
At the top of this hill was a restaurant trying to attract people to come back later by handing out "free beer". There were lots of people drinking it too (I later found out Jeff was one of those people!) These were not little shots like the water stations, these were glasses of beer! I don't know how you would run and drink that much, I struggled with the bathroom cup sized water.
About the time I saw the 2nd Elvis (I did not see the running Elvis) there was a lady running in a veil in front of me with the t-shirt "This time next week I am running down the aisle" I hope she is running the right way!
The last person I really remember was Gator Lady! All of us had a different Gator Lady story, but she managed to catch everyone's attention.
Gator Lady should be easy to describe, a lady with an alligator. The gator was stuffed and on a leash and she was YELLING! I mean she would read someones shirt and then tell them to run hard they were almost there! My brother said she was telling people to run or she would let that gator chase them to the finish.
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| I would like to point out, although the brother has a much lower corral number he finished behind me! Hooray for turning 30 and finally beating my brother all in the same day! |
I had so much fun with trying to remember all these signs I thought I would look at some more: this is hilarious! Just a bunch of signs, many of which I remember the same sentiment in Nashville. I like the last one posted there in particular, just me! And check out Kate's blog, she helped me remember some of the signs she thought were good and also blogged about the race.
What are some of the funny signs you have seen while running? I know some of the readers have finished more 1/2s and marathons and you have to have a favorite story!
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