At 7am on August 31, 2014 a steady cold rain was falling in Mexico City and 20,000 runners were stacked and ready behind the Mexico City Marathon's starting line. Surrounded by the architectural beauty of the city's historic downtown, these athletes were prepared and pumped to cover the 42 kilometers that would lead them through DF to the Olympic Stadium. |
While we were not running, we were ready to cheer. In a lucky break, the runners came down Avenida Insurgentes just in front of our building. We grabbed some essentials . . . coffee, water, seats, dogs, blankets . . . and headed down to find a building overhang close to the street. We fell in with a pack of race volunteers and anxiously awaited the runners. For the next few hours we cheered, laughed, smiled and clapped for the determined marathoners as they moved past us at roughly the 30K mark. It was our first time to support from the sidelines and we loved it! We learned later from the race website that Peruvian runner Raul Pacheco Mendoza won with a time of 2 hours, 18 minutes and 26 seconds and the women's category was won by Shewarge Amare from Ethiopia with a time of 2 hours, 41 minutes and 21 seconds. Congrats to all of the 2014 marathoners! |