Columnists
Thank you
How many years now?
Go on, count how many years the PEC Marathon has been a fall event in the County. Lost count? Well, to save you the time it takes to put the newspaper down and go to your computer to Google “how many years”, it has been 13 years. Yup. Yessir. It has been 13 years! What? You didn’t know there was ever a marathon held in the County. Hmmmm. Have you been living under a rock for the last 13 years or did you just move here? Pick one. So, on that note, how many of you woke up this past Sunday and decided to do a bit of a cook’s tour of the County only to be confounded by the detours, the neon-vested volunteers who were directing traffic, the closed roads and, horror of horrors, the scads of scantily clad people running on the roads. And those damn runners weren’t even on the side of the road where they belong, most of them were smack-dab in the middle. For some drivers, the only thing worse than a cyclist is a runner. Go on. You know I’m right about that. But come on, it’s been 13 years. Surely you know it’s going to happen. It’s like death and taxes, almost.
LOML and I have had the great pleasure of being among the dozens of people who just happen to volunteer for the PEC Marathon. When we get up on Marathon Sunday, we have our breakfast, drink our coffee, put on our all-weather gear and head out to our appointed location, wearing our neon vests and carrying our County maps. We have been assigned to “traffic control”.
LOML has been volunteering with the PEC Marathon much longer than I. In the early years of the event, while he volunteered at his corner, I covered the marathon for good ole Osprey Media. Yup, I had a camera and a press pass, which was my carte blanche to just about everywhere the route took the runners.
In the early days, I covered the route by bicycle. Yes, I did. It was as if I wanted to be hated more 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 to make sure drivers get from here to there without mishap to other drivers, to volunteers and to runners.
Needless to say, our job is a piece of cake early on in the race and then gets a bit complicated around the three-hour mark when the bulk of the runners start coming through. As regards the drivers, well around half past ten, non-running folks want to get to their Timmies or their Egg McMuffins. Some are on their way to church. Some are heading to, or home from, work. And a few just want to get to Sobey’s or Metro to pick up the groceries.
The problem I see and hear about is there is seems to be a substantial number of local drivers who claim they had no idea the race was happening that day. More than once, when I’ve stopped a driver I was asked, “What the H E double hockey sticks is going on?” Or something similar with different adjectives. Indeed, a fair number of people seem to have slept through the numerous news stories on the radio, in the newspapers and online. They, obviously, “get all the news they need from the weather report”. My theory of their living under a rock for 13 years made a bit of sense on Sunday when one woman asked, “When the hell did this crap start?” Doh!
For the most part, it’s a fabulous event. It really 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. The drivers have an interesting time and some of them get to drive on “alternate routes” to get to where they’re going. 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 end result is that the Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital Foundation is the recipient of a portion of the proceeds from the the County Marathon! Yup, our hospital (right here in the County) gets some money because of an annual event that inconvenienced a few people for a few hours on the first Sunday in October. To this and all of the perceived inconvenience of the PEC Marathon, I say, “Thank you”. Thank you all very much.
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