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Fourteen years! The County Marathon has been a fall event in the County for 14 years. The local newspapers, the radio and even the local television station have made mention of the County Marathon, the date, the road closures, the times and the potential for inconvenience.
As with years in the past, I would like to know how many of you woke up on October 1 and, perhaps subconsciously, decided to jump in the Rolls-Can-Hardly and fanny around the race route only to be confounded by the detours, the neon-vested volunteers directing traffic, the closed roads and, horror of horrors, the scads of scantily clad people running on the roads. Get with the program, County Folks. This year is 14 years of marathon weekends. You know it’s going to happen. It’s like the end of summer. “Weather” or not, it’s going to happen.
LOML and I have had the great pleasure of being among the dozens of people who to volunteer for the County Marathon. When we get up on Marathon Sunday, we have our breakfast, drink our coffee, check the weather from the side porch and head out to our appointed location, wearing our neon vests, carrying our County maps and a Thermos of coffee. Since the beginning we have been assigned to traffic control. LOML has been volunteering with the County Marathon much longer than I. In the early years of the event, while he volunteered at his corner, I covered the race for a newspaper. I would grab my camera and my press pass, hop on my Brodie and cycle the route. I had the carte blanche to just about anywhere the route took the runners. Cycling the route, with a press pass, is one way to be more hated than the runners. It was me, my press pass, my gosh-darned bicycle and those damned runners out there on the back roads of the County, looking to be scorned. These days, I don’t cover events like I used to. No, these days I’ve joined LOML on Lake Street—he at the corner of James and me at the corner of Upper Lake. As traffic control volunteers, it is our job, first of all, to ensure the safety of the runners. Additionally, we have to make sure drivers get from here to there without too much fuss. Traffic control is a slice of pie between 9:30 a.m. and about 10:30. And then? Well, and then gets a bit tense. And around the three hour mark, when the bulk of the runners start coming through, the traffic controllers are really put to the test. Folks are on their way to church or heading to work. And a few just want to get to Sobey’s or Metro to pick up a few groceries. Often, when I’ve stopped a driver, I was asked what was going on and I get, “Oh, is that this weekend?”
All in all, it’s a pretty amazing event. I think it brings our community together. The volunteers have a terrific time—at least the volunteers on our end of the route had a good time! The cheering crowds with their bells, whistles and noisemakers have a terrific time. Drivers and cyclists have an interesting time getting around on routes they haven’t used for years. The media has a blast because the media loves a sporting event. Coaches and trainers get to see the proof of their pudding. Heck, even some of the runners look like they were having a humdinger of a day. The end result? Glad you asked. The best outcome is the Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital Foundation is the recipient of a portion of the proceeds from the the County Marathon! Our hospital benefits because of an annual event that might inconvenience a few people for a few hours on the first Sunday in October.
Next year is County Marathon number fifteen. It’ll take place on September 30. There will be detours and there will be road closures. As a non-participant or volunteer, you will feel inconvenienced. So, fire up your device and mark your calendar, right now. You heard me. Put it on your calendar. I don’t want to hear you whine in 2018 about how no one told you, ‘cuz I just did.
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