A Different Half Marathon Experience For Me

Today was the Hershey Half Marathon.  Instead of getting up bright and early to run, I woke up bright and early to cheer on my TEAM!  This season, my teammates and I could choose between doing the Nike Women's Marathon, the Hershey Half Marathon and the Marine Corp Marathon.  I did the Nike Women's Half Marathon last weekend.  This weekend was the Hershey Half Marathon.  Most of my teammates who were not running formed cheer squads to wait along the course and cheer on our teammates.

We all meet out side of the Hershey Park Chocolate World 6:45 am.  Everyone brought  fun outfits, brightly colored wigs, megaphones, pom poms, signs, bam bams, and whistles--all to cheer on our team!  I wore my TEAM jersey and my green SparkleSkirt.  We broke off into our cheer groups and got to our positions just as the roads were being closed.

My group was at the bottom of a loop that on one side was at mile 7.2 and the other side at 9.2.  Being past mile 7, we did not see a runner until about 40 minutes into the race.  The first few runners that ran past seemed almost annoyed at us cheering for them.  I guess they were concentrating on running hard and winning.  It was about an hour into the race before we saw any of our teammates.  We cheered for every runner on the course, but our teammates got extra cheers!  The coaches were along the course for our teammates, just as they were last weekend for the Nike runners.

After the last teammate ran past us, we packed up and headed to the finish.  We got there in time to see the last few teammates cross the finish line.  We congratulated all of the finisher and a few of us got to talking about our events for next year.  Lots of fun things to come!  The team will meet for "fun runs" a few times over the winter, but not every Saturday like we have since January. Coach Barb said it best by saying she will miss her new family over winter break.  I will miss them too!

A dream is a wish...

--Amy