With A Quarter Mile To Go

We were standing along the final quarter mile of the marathon route. The runners going by us had covered 26 miles and were within sight of the finish line. From here it was all downhill. The slight breeze was behind them. The voice of the finish line announcer shouted out their names.

I don't know what happened to her, but from among the runners a woman came staggering toward us standing by the side of the road. She had evidently been running with the 3:40 pace team. One of the pace team leaders was holding her up. And he needed to hold her up, because she could barely stand on her own. As he and she came toward the crowd, he motioned for us to step aside so that he could help her sit down.

Her eyes were dazed -- not focused and rolling around as if she were about to faint. The man lowered her gently, and someone in the crowd held her other arm as they sat her on the curb. A bystander offered her some Gatorade, but she couldn't drink it. It just ran down the front of her jersey.

A race volunteer in an orange jacket came over from across the street. He was talking into a radio.

Time passed. No one came. Nothing seemed to be happening. I walked over to the man in the orange jacket.

Is someone coming? I asked.

He looked around and muttered something about his radio not working.

Do you want me to go get someone?

Yes.

Where?

The medical tent, he said, and he pointed toward the finish line a quarter mile away.

I turned and started walking quickly through the crowd. When I got nearer to the finish line, I started running. Eventually I came to a gate and a volunteer with a badge hanging around his neck. I explained that there was a runner down who needed help. He turned to go get someone, but after a few steps he came back. He pointed across to a woman standing 30 yards away and said that she had a radio.

She was 30 yards away. He wasn't going to let me in. Instead, he wanted me to run twice that far around the periphery and behind a semi-truck trailer to get to her. So I did. I was breathing hard and could barely talk when I got there. She was talking to a man. He had a radio. I didn't see one on her. I looked at them and interrupted their conversation with a stare.

The man turned to me, and I explained that a runner was down on the left side of the road about a quarter mile away, just beyond the barricades. He acknowledged what I said and immediately began talking into his radio.

They'll be there, he said.

I jogged back.

When I got there, the woman was still sitting on the curb. No one had showed up, yet. The runners who had held her up were still there. She had a silvery blanket around her, and it sparkled in the sun. Someone had given her an ice pack. Her eyes were still glazed. She had been crying.

I looked around, expecting to see paramedics on bikes or maybe an ambulance, since we were so close to the end. Instead, two men came walking up from the finish line. Neither appeared to be a paramedic. One was pushing a wheel chair. They were on the other side of the street. We waved to them so that they could see us.

The pace team runners and the two men helped the woman into the wheel chair. She slumped back and looked up us standing around her. We must have all looked very worried. Her eyes were filled with sadness.

I'm sorry, she said, as they turned her chair and pushed her towards the medical tent.

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2005 Freescale Marathon, Austin TX

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