I didn't know it then but the yelling over the next few hours would leave me voiceless for several days. We arrived in small groups and spilled out of vans to take our positions in the unexpectedly bitter cold of a Florida winter. The damp January air jabbed icy fingers around us in the stillness shortly after dawn. We huddled quietly as we scanned the horizon for the first of the other group to crest the hill. Surely they would not be expecting us to be waiting in this lonely place so far from where they had begun.
What happened that morning would add much information and confirmation to what I was already practicing regarding the power of encouragement. A decade later I still marvel at what I saw that day.
The event was the Walt Disney World Marathon and we were being compensated generously with admission tickets for our participation that morning. The race was just over twenty-six miles and we were positioned where the runners had most of the race behind them and only three or four miles left to the finish line. Our job was to cheer them on to complete the race, no matter where they ranked among the runners. Though the incline we observed was a hill, it could hardly be called a heartbreak hill except this point in the race was when the body would be protesting loudest at the demands made on it and begging to quit.
The first arrivals glided swiftly by alone or in pairs, their conditioned bodies barely breaking a sweat as they slid by effortlessly in a regulated cadence to finish in the top group. Then it was quiet again until clusters of runners glided by, raising their arms in response to our cheering. Hands were clapped vigorouly to create warmth and to energize the runners for the last leg of a challenging race.
The runners came in all colors, shapes, sizes, ages, physiques and preparedness. They came from all over the country, their hometown or states proudly proclaimed on their t-shirts. Many tops bore the name of the runner. Other jerseys were the same color and style on friends who had traveled to the race together. Still traveling together, they dribbled at various pacings down the hill towards us.
Without exception, we were rewarded with a smile when we called out their name or cheered, "You're almost there Minnesota!" Even those who were walking down the hill picked up the pace to a light shuffle with a spring in their step as they got within eyeshot then earshot of our cheerleaders. We stayed for several hours, shuffling ourselves as it remained cold, not letting anyone who had made it that far go unnoticed.
We left reluctantly, knowing we had made a difference and wondering how many finished who might not have just because Disney had the wisdom to place some fresh enthusiasm at a critical place in the course. No one who wanted to finish would feel invisible.
It didn't matter that we didn't really know Abigail when we shouted that she was doing great. She was tired and had been at this for a while. She knew she was too far behind to be a prize winner but nevertheless, she had prepared, traveled, sacrificed to be there and she wanted to finish, to finish well. What she heard the most was that someone knew she was still in the race and she was still running, though slower than others. That and the encouragement that it wasn't much longer until she would see the finish line.
Life has often been compared to a marathon race. Nearing sixty, this close to the finish line, my favorite race to run in doesn't look like the race I signed up for at the beginning. What happened at heartbreak hill? So many I was running with have dropped out of the race or just gotten off course and walked onto some other course where they didn't feel invisible. At the critical point, was there no one there who knew their name or where they were from? Did no one see that they had run the race to that point well? Where were the cheerleaders encouraging them to finish?
You can be a runner AND a cheerleader! As a runner, are you letting yourself be known, who you are and how you got there? Are you counting the cost, pacing, and training to cross the finish line of a long race? As a cheerleader, are placing yourself at a crucial point for those in the race, looking for some way to meaningfully connect, and keeping them on a course to finish? Are you willing to be inconvenienced, helping a stranger, and cheering until you lose your voice?
In what race are you running? Who might you help cross the finish line?
