Monday, May 06, 2002
Pig: 500 volunteers man 25 stations
'Grunts' provide runners' oasis
By Howard Wilkinson, hwilkinson@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Fluid for the body, encouragement for the soul.
That's what marathon runners needed early Sunday as they plowed through the 26.2 mile Flying Pig Marathon course. It didn't matter if they were front-runners eating up the pavement in long, graceful strides or among those in the back of the pack, just trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
More than 500 YMCA volunteers at 25 water stations along the route were there to provide both.
That included the 20 who gathered before dawn on a fog-shrouded McMillan Avenue in East Walnut Hills, right in front of the Williams YMCA.
“We're here to give them what they need to keep going,” said Mitch Kroell of Norwood, crew chief at Williams YMCA.
This water stop is the 7.1 mile marker in the marathon.
Volunteers — all of them YMCA members, officers and staffers — began showing up at Williams shortly after 5:30 a.m., donning their “Official Grunt” T-shirts, and snacking on doughnuts and orange juice.
At 6 a.m., Essie Pederson of Hyde Park was standing on the curb in front of the YMCA, wielding a garden hose and filling 30-gallon plastic-lined garbage cans with water.
“Pretty glamorous job, don't you think?,” Ms. Pederson said.
A few minutes later, a delivery truck pulled up and unloaded 10 six-foot folding tables, which volunteers grabbed and started setting up on both sides of the street — six for water, four directly behind them for lemon-lime Gatorade.
On any ordinary Sunday at 6:30 a.m., East Walnut Hills is a quiet place, except for the chirping of birds on the tree-lined streets. But on race day, a van sat next to the YMCA building with two large speakers mounted on top hooked to a CD player that blared rock 'n' roll.
As the volunteers grabbed plastic pitchers and began filling hundreds of small paper cups, stacking them in rows on the tables, they were serenaded by George Thorogood and the Destroyers, John Mellencamp, ZZ Top, and Led Zeppelin.
Shortly after 7 a.m., the first of the nearly 7,230 runners and walkers made the turn at Victory Parkway and headed toward Williams YMCA.
“Here they come!,” Mr. Kroell shouted. “Water in the front! Gatorade in the back!”
First a trickle, then a steady stream, of walkers began passing by the tables. By 7:05 a.m., the first of the marathon runners — former Cincinnatian Scott Young of Tucson, Ariz., who ended up finishing third — passed the station and grabbed a cup of water from the outstretched hand of a volunteer.
By 7:15, the stream of runners had become a mighty river, filling McMillan from one side to the other. Volunteers shouted out encouragement as they passed out the cups: “Good luck! You're doing great! Keep it up!”
A runner with the word “Glide” scrawled on the back of his T-shirt took a cup of water from Ms. Pederson and shouted back as he disappeared into the fog: “Thanks for being here! Thanks for your help.”
At 7:20 a.m., Mr. Kroell ran inside the Y and came out with a half dozen leaf rakes. He passed them out to volunteers who started raking into the curb thousands of paper cups thrown down by runners.
At the corner of Ashland and McMillan streets, a small group of fans, all of them from Austin, Texas, stood on the corner to cheer five friends running in the race.
Texan Janet Pichette held a hand-lettered sign she waved at the multitude as it passed by: “Run Hard, Live Easy.”
“It's the credo of the Texas runner,” she said.
By 8:10 a.m., the last of the stragglers passed by the Williams YMCA and the volunteers began knocking down the folding tables and shoveling the paper cups into garbage cans.
A group of women volunteers merrily jumped up and down stomping paper cups to flatten them.
“It's all over pretty quickly,” Ms. Pederson said. “But it's so much fun to be part of it.”
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Pig: 500 volunteers man 25 stations
