The Melbourne Marathon...

One day this report will be a race report about my experience of running a full marathon and hopefully it will be a triumphant one reporting an achievable time.

This report is of my experience of volunteering at a drinks station, providing much needed fluid replacement to those who had finished their 42km run.

This happy group were kept very busy handing out water and electrolyte solution to the thousands that had participated. The elite athletes that came in first were ushered over to a VIP area, then we had the rush come through between 3-4 hours after the start gun.

 We were slammed, barely able to keep up with the demand, filling garbage bin sized buckets with fluids continuously. In the beginning we had neatly poured with a jug several thousand cups but as the rush came we were dipping the cups straight from the bucket and only just kept up.
After the 5 hour mark the line dwindled to a trickle and those runners looks more and more exhausted. More training perhaps would give them a better result in better condition. But they can all still call themselves marathoners and have the medal to prove it,
It was a good experience and we had some laughs. The Cerebral Palsy Education Centre who coordinated the 1500 volunteers did a great job and I hope they were able to get some benefit from providing this service. The runners were all very grateful and thankful which was nice. From my perspective volunteering had done what I wanted it to do. I felt like I had contributed, I am inspired by the participants and am renewed in my enthusiasm to run.

 I want to be back on the other side of the drinks table.