In it to Win It

That was the rally cry of our morning.

Yet another morning up bright and early due to my passion for running (and volunteering). This time it was a bit earlier (up at 4:35) but it was more rewarding...In a quick recap, our morning involved...

• setting up a waterstop at the ING Marathon,
• filling up literally thousands of water and Gatorade cups,
• handing them out and screaming/cheering for all the running/walking participants,

and then

• taking everything down.

Our community group from church volunteered at the 4th mile marker water stop. It was incredibly convenient to our church in case we wanted to just walk over to the service after our volunteer session was over.

Turns out, our group was paired with the Lupus Foundation and they had so many volunteers that it made everything extremely quick and efficient. At the end of the race, all the runners vote on their favorite water stop. Whichever stop wins receives money donated to their cause and organization. Very neat idea and really makes the water stops worth running towards--motivation that a runner may need at any point during the race.

Team Lupus was second last year so this year they were "In it to Win It". In order to convince runners that we were really the best stop, we played the Rocky soundtrack (on repeat...for 3 hours) while flashing lots of propaganda soliciting the fact that we were "The Best Water Stop" (seriously, we held up signs that said that). It was fun and i hope Team Lupus Foundation wins because they deserve it for all the effort they put into it.

Here are a few highlights from the morning:

Before, during, and after the runners:

The very fast and the very dedicated:


and those too fast for my iPhone: