For the past several years, I have gone out to cheer on the runners of the LA Marathon. It’s become a tradition for me to do it, and while it doesn’t always work out the way I hope it will I try my best. I usually cheer runners on from the same place, which I think has a few benefits. First, it’s one of the closest places for me to drive to that is on the marathon route. Also, my friends who run the marathon year after year usually know where I am so I can cheer them on directly.
I haven’t always had signs with me when I cheer on the runners, but that has become something I look forward to doing. I love having fun signs because I know it makes the runners smile. While I’ve never done a marathon, I know that there are points in my 5K races that I need to be cheered on and having fun signs to read is a good distraction. So I want to do the same for others. And I have been told by many marathon running friends that the place I usually cheer on from (between miles 19 and 20) tends to be a place many runners hit a wall so all encouragement is appreciated.
I didn’t start working on what I wanted on my cheering signs until the last minute. I asked my friend who was going to be joining me to cheer if there was any particular sign she wanted me to make (I’m happy to make the signs for my friends to hold too). She thought about it, and decided this is what she wanted.
I also wanted a sign that was specific to Orangetheory since I knew several people from there would be running too. I had a few ideas of what I could put on a sign, and this was the final decision.
And even though it was only going to be me and 1 friend out there, I wanted to make a 3rd sign since one was specific to Orangetheory people. I looked at a few different lists online of funny signs and I saw one that a kid had at a marathon a few years ago. But I figured it would be a really good one to have.
Making the signs is a pretty easy process since I get paper letters from the store (my handwriting is way too sloppy) and I was proud of what I made and how they looked when I was done.
Marathon day ended up being a really gorgeous day. It was sunny but not too hot. And we lucked out with very little traffic on the way there and we found a parking space pretty quickly. We had been tracking the pace of the friends we wanted to cheer on, and we were standing on the sideline before any of them already went by.
Even with the tracking the marathon provided, we kind of failed at cheering on our friends. Some of them we didn’t see even though we knew approximately when they would be going by. And several people we did see but they were on the other side of the street and didn’t see us (and they had headphones in so they couldn’t hear us cheer). It was a little disappointing that we didn’t get to directly cheer on the people we wanted to see, but that didn’t mean we weren’t going to cheer on for all the people we didn’t know.
It took a little bit of time, but my sign ended up being a pretty big hit. People were running by and tapping the sign to power up. There were even some people who were on the other side of the street that noticed the sign and came over just to tap it. Everyone who saw any of our signs had a big smile and I know that they enjoyed them. The only mistake I made with my power up sign was that I didn’t reinforce in somehow. After a bunch of people were tapping it, the sign was starting to bend and it was harder to hold it steady as more people came over to tap it. But I just tried to hold the sign tight and I think it worked out well.
We were out there cheering on the runners for about 2 hours before we had to head out. There was a family standing near us that was also cheering on runners but didn’t have a sign, so we offered them the power up sign. The kids were super excited to have it and I was glad that more runners were going to get joy out of it.
I know that some people are a bit annoyed with the marathon because of all the street closures and sometimes traffic can be really horrible. But I do enjoy it. Any time I can see a group of strangers come together for something positive is something I like to see. I love getting to cheer on the runners because I know that they appreciate it. And hopefully next year when I cheer for the marathon some of my friends will see me so I can cheer them up directly!
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