Roo and Piglet (and Greece) Forever

Marathons are powered by … a whole host of magical factors. Magical, I say, because I’m sure it all goes just beyond science. There’s the physiology and physics, the weather, the predictable and unpredictable conditions that training prepares for, but in the end, it comes down to magic.

The Myrtle Beach Marathon was powered by … volunteers with smiles and yellow T-shirts. Magic. I’m betting those volunteers don’t even know how awesome they are. Most of them probably never noticed me as I sped past them, fired by the energy of the friendly sparks they gave off into the atmosphere. “This is so much fun!” I heard a high school-age girl say after she handed off a cup of sports drink to a runner. I saw other volunteers talking and laughing with one another. It was a beautiful day, and the volunteers in their bright shirts were dressed like sunshine.

Actually, some of them did notice me. They had already been standing around for a while handing out numbers/shirts/drinks/medals before I arrived, and they still looked at me without letting their eyes glaze over, as if I were the first and only one they were serving. The teenage girl at the expo on Friday night who gave me my T-shirt and other goodies had a script to recite. She was careful with the words to get them right. Shirts were running small; did I want to change sizes? She held up an example of the size I had ordered. Then she showed me the arm warmers, which she and the other T-shirt volunteers were wearing for purposes of demonstration. (Imagine the creative repurposing of those long cloth tubes in the absence of volunteer guidance.) I’ve gone to lots of expos and picked up lots of T-shirts, and sometimes the volunteers are tired (no wonder) and bored (also no wonder) and want to just toss you your stuff so you’ll go away. But in spite of the scriptedness of her words, this girl spoke to me, not at me.

I already carried a smile inside when I got to her table. My first stop inside the expo had been at the number pickup desk, where my welcome came from friends of Winnie the Pooh. I had forgotten that the marathon registration form invited entrants to list a name or nickname for display on the number bib, so I figured the volunteer who retrieved my number from her stack of runner bibs was psychic when she remarked to the woman next to her, nodding at me, “This is Roo.”

Roo who? Roo is me. “Any relation?” the second volunteer asked. Well, yes. My childhood nickname has something to do with a pair of purple sneakers branded “Kangaroos,” but it’s the Winnie the Pooh gang who gave the name meaning. So I said “yes,” and in return I was informed that I had just met Piglet’s grandmother. Such a friendly reunion! Of course, this grandmother’s “Piglet” was obviously still a child, whereas from an objective view, I am not. Nevermind that: Roo and Piglet are forever.

What do you do when you leave a marathon expo feeling welcomed and happy? You have a great race. That’s the rule! And at the end of it, after I ran by all the miles of spectators cheering for “Roo” (thanks to my bib), more volunteers waited to top off the experience with the ultimate reward: the finisher’s medal. Among the line of medal givers, one of the volunteers read the words on my T-shirt. “If you’re ‘Running the World,’” she said, “I’ll meet you in Greece in two years.”

Well, that gives me a little time to plan.