MARATHON MONDAY

Here in Massachusetts, there is a holiday called Patriot's Day. Every year on Patriot's Day is the annual Boston marathon. A friend of mine from school asked me about a month ago to go with some students and volunteer at the marathon. Of course I said yes, cause I have marathon on my mind, so I knew it would be a great experience to get me motivated! So, my day started when I woke up at 2:36AM. That has got to be the earliest I have ever woken up for reals. Not only was it very early, but we were in the middle of our BIG Noreaster, which had stared sunday morning. It poured and it poured and it poured. Coming from the desert, I just keep thinking in my mind that in 15 minutes it will just stop and the sun will come out. Nope, it kept raining. So, at 3:00 in the morning, and in torrential rains, I drove into Worcester to meet up with my friends. There was so much rain on the highway, that I kept almost hydroplaining, and I frequently had to drive between lanes to avoid the natural divits. We met up with the rest of our group in Boston at our main school campus (which is much nicer and cooler than the Worcester campus). Our job really started once they shipped us to the starting line, which is 26.2 miles west of Boston (imagine that!). Torrential rains continue. I was fortunate to ride on a school bus next to a man from New Hampshire, who had moved his family to SLC to work for a little less than a year. So, we had a really good talk about the church and about our different situations. Him moving out there and me moving out here. It was really cool. Anyway, Sup, Jane, Susan and I were assigned to a bus together. Our objective was to collect the bags of the runners and transport them to the finish line. We put signs up in the windows indicating to the runners which window to drop their bag off at. All attempting to keep things organized. We put the windows down and just before the race, the runners throw their bags at us and run off to the finish line. It was super fun. We were assined numbers 11,000-11,500 and the only problem we had was that for some reason there was no buses with the numbers 10,000-10,999, so all of those runners took it out on us. By the way, torrential rains continued... The runners were freezing, so much so that they could barely close up their bags before giving them to us. I felt so bad for them. But, miraculously, just after the race began, the rain finally let up and it turned out to be a nice day. I hear the wind was still a little strong for the runners (40 mph). We escorted the bags to the finish line via a police escort and we made it just in time to see the first female runners come in!! It was so inspirational!! It got me so pumped up, I just wanted to go back to the starting line and run it myself. (I would probably die, but I really wanted to...). Anyway, it was so much fun and a great experience to wish the runners luck before the commenced their long journey to the line. It was only 3:00 in the afternoon when I got home, which meant I had already been awake for over 12 hours, and once I laid down, I was out...