Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Watching Arthur and Amy run the Miami Marathon
CONDO IN THE KEYS by Wally Dobelis
If you want your inner child- cheerleader category – come out, go to a Marathon, and cheer the participants. The Miami Marathon is a terrific opportunity, because you can see your darlings at more than one station. We came to South Beach, because the whole Marathon group, starting at the American Airlines Stadium at 6Am, has a 5th mile passing point near our hotel, Betsy Ross , at 14th street, and we saw our darlings there, near 6;30, lit by a street light, about 10 minutes apart. Now you must understand that both the Rickenbacker Causeway, by which the marathon runner enter South Beach, and the Venetian, on which they exit, are closed for traffic, so we had no exit, to get to another observation point at the Miami Natural History Museum on Biscayne Blvd, which we had spied as a joint spot where you can see runners at 15th and 25th mile points. It took ingenuity to discover this place, and planning and luck to get there. At 14th Street the runners went west two blocks, to continue on Washington Ave and circle Miami Beach, leaving the center, Collins Avenue open, with traffic stranded, including some taxis. I went shouting down Collins, to attract a stranded empty taxi ready to turn around and get back to action in downtown Miami, stopped it and had him take is to the only open causeway, Alice Tuttle at 41st Street, to the 15/25 mile spot, a $45 ride. Once there we saw no spectators except for three red-shirted volunteer women from Chicago and Cleveland, with cups f drinks, pretzels an clickers, and long inflated rattle balloons, that could be slapped together. The first winner types, gaunt skinny men and women with foreign faces and insignia, were already there, unbelievable phenomena, totally framed in their task and non-responsive to our shouts of encouragement passing through while we were unpacking the cheer boards with the names of our darlings lettered on, and the happy face balloon bought last night at the local Walgreen’s and filled with helium at no extra charge. Name boards set on the ground, with the balloon overhead, we three parents spread out along a median, with our rattle balloons and digital cameras in hand, to greet the marathoners. Cheerleading does not come naturally, and it took us a while to get into the language of the red-shirted ladies, who danced, clapped and shouted encouragement: you’re looking good, keep it up, you going to make it! We stared experimenting wit Like your stride (good), no pain no strain (discarded), you are all winners (produced smiles and grimaces), ignore the red light1 ( some guffaws). The latter was interesting because we were at the intersection of two parallel roads reserved for runners and a major two way crossroad, which was accumulating angry drivers, blowing horns. Walking into their midst with a Marathon sign quieted them down and made most of them turn around, and eventually, toward the end of the two and a half hours we were theirs, the straggler marathoner traffic thinned and the local cops were able to send little spurts of one to three cars through. Once our two runners were through, half an hour apart, we paced and crossed the road to the 25th mile point, where single speedsters were racing through, seeming no more distressed than when we first saw them at the 15th.. I tried to concentrate on the stragglers coming through the e 15th, with a different cheer: It’s your day, don’t rush, baby, enjoy your day in the sun, which seemed to produce smiles through the palpable pains. At this point the participants, who paid $75 for the pleasure of getting a number and running or walking through the 26.2 mile full course (the 13.1 mile half-marathon racers were already finished), were elderly couples or stout or unpracticed non-runner community AIDS or training organization members doing their own fundraisers, who felt the pain, as much as the 25-milers. Many of the latter had drawn faces, and would stop, rub their legs, or resort to a walk. They need more of such words as You are almost there, you are really amazing, you’re going to make, it’s just a round the corner ( a lie we regretted when we had to walk in the last 2.2 miles to meet with our runners,). The least perturbed where the amputees who raced on wheels, amazingly agile, and the blind, accompanied by bicycle riding volunteer guides. There one or two visibly distressed runners, one who carried on bent sideways, and another who staggered. I tried to send the bicycled observers after them, to unknown results. We found our runners after we quit cheerleading four and a half hours into the day, after the last of our kids had passed through. We then walked the last torturous 2.2 miles, alongside the late runners . When found, our team had had heir free massages or rubdowns, solid portions of chicken or beans, oranges or cold drinks, and were reclining under the tent of the massage area, our agreed meeting point, ready to tell us tales of their pains and glories.The elders, happy with the safe outcome, were willing to listen, forever. Walking in, we also passed a Cuban band (there were some 15 music and dance groups playing along the course) and squads of schoolchildren volunteers with tables and tables of liquids (there were 20such) who offered the runners cups of soft drinks and water, and poured, when asked, some of the cool stuff over the runners’ heads. We too could have used some, believe me.
If you want your inner child- cheerleader category – come out, go to a Marathon, and cheer the participants. The Miami Marathon is a terrific opportunity, because you can see your darlings at more than one station. We came to South Beach, because the whole Marathon group, starting at the American Airlines Stadium at 6Am, has a 5th mile passing point near our hotel, Betsy Ross , at 14th street, and we saw our darlings there, near 6;30, lit by a street light, about 10 minutes apart. Now you must understand that both the Rickenbacker Causeway, by which the marathon runner enter South Beach, and the Venetian, on which they exit, are closed for traffic, so we had no exit, to get to another observation point at the Miami Natural History Museum on Biscayne Blvd, which we had spied as a joint spot where you can see runners at 15th and 25th mile points. It took ingenuity to discover this place, and planning and luck to get there. At 14th Street the runners went west two blocks, to continue on Washington Ave and circle Miami Beach, leaving the center, Collins Avenue open, with traffic stranded, including some taxis. I went shouting down Collins, to attract a stranded empty taxi ready to turn around and get back to action in downtown Miami, stopped it and had him take is to the only open causeway, Alice Tuttle at 41st Street, to the 15/25 mile spot, a $45 ride. Once there we saw no spectators except for three red-shirted volunteer women from Chicago and Cleveland, with cups f drinks, pretzels an clickers, and long inflated rattle balloons, that could be slapped together. The first winner types, gaunt skinny men and women with foreign faces and insignia, were already there, unbelievable phenomena, totally framed in their task and non-responsive to our shouts of encouragement passing through while we were unpacking the cheer boards with the names of our darlings lettered on, and the happy face balloon bought last night at the local Walgreen’s and filled with helium at no extra charge. Name boards set on the ground, with the balloon overhead, we three parents spread out along a median, with our rattle balloons and digital cameras in hand, to greet the marathoners. Cheerleading does not come naturally, and it took us a while to get into the language of the red-shirted ladies, who danced, clapped and shouted encouragement: you’re looking good, keep it up, you going to make it! We stared experimenting wit Like your stride (good), no pain no strain (discarded), you are all winners (produced smiles and grimaces), ignore the red light1 ( some guffaws). The latter was interesting because we were at the intersection of two parallel roads reserved for runners and a major two way crossroad, which was accumulating angry drivers, blowing horns. Walking into their midst with a Marathon sign quieted them down and made most of them turn around, and eventually, toward the end of the two and a half hours we were theirs, the straggler marathoner traffic thinned and the local cops were able to send little spurts of one to three cars through. Once our two runners were through, half an hour apart, we paced and crossed the road to the 25th mile point, where single speedsters were racing through, seeming no more distressed than when we first saw them at the 15th.. I tried to concentrate on the stragglers coming through the e 15th, with a different cheer: It’s your day, don’t rush, baby, enjoy your day in the sun, which seemed to produce smiles through the palpable pains. At this point the participants, who paid $75 for the pleasure of getting a number and running or walking through the 26.2 mile full course (the 13.1 mile half-marathon racers were already finished), were elderly couples or stout or unpracticed non-runner community AIDS or training organization members doing their own fundraisers, who felt the pain, as much as the 25-milers. Many of the latter had drawn faces, and would stop, rub their legs, or resort to a walk. They need more of such words as You are almost there, you are really amazing, you’re going to make, it’s just a round the corner ( a lie we regretted when we had to walk in the last 2.2 miles to meet with our runners,). The least perturbed where the amputees who raced on wheels, amazingly agile, and the blind, accompanied by bicycle riding volunteer guides. There one or two visibly distressed runners, one who carried on bent sideways, and another who staggered. I tried to send the bicycled observers after them, to unknown results. We found our runners after we quit cheerleading four and a half hours into the day, after the last of our kids had passed through. We then walked the last torturous 2.2 miles, alongside the late runners . When found, our team had had heir free massages or rubdowns, solid portions of chicken or beans, oranges or cold drinks, and were reclining under the tent of the massage area, our agreed meeting point, ready to tell us tales of their pains and glories.The elders, happy with the safe outcome, were willing to listen, forever. Walking in, we also passed a Cuban band (there were some 15 music and dance groups playing along the course) and squads of schoolchildren volunteers with tables and tables of liquids (there were 20such) who offered the runners cups of soft drinks and water, and poured, when asked, some of the cool stuff over the runners’ heads. We too could have used some, believe me.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 6:17 AM 
