What a day for a marathon

Yesterday I learned that the Halifax Marathon (or as it is officially called the Scotiabank Bluenose Marathon) was to take place today and that Neil and Rebecca would be volunteering at a water station all day. Given that neither of them has showed all that much interest in competitive running in the past I was a little surprised to hear that they were to be participating. Even more surprising was that to be able to volunteer today they had to take an online training session. The session included content on the history of the marathon and Nova Scotia as well as 'safety' content (apparently all drinks should be handed out only by gloved hands).

That Neil and Rebecca were involved encouraged me to head out for a walk this morning to take in a few of the marathon related sights. Unfortunately, I think that most of what I saw ended up being related to the various shorter runs that were taking place at the same time on similar routes.

I was pretty excited to see one of the water stations, which I presume is somewhat similar to the one Neil and Rebecca are working at the moment (they have to be there from 8:30 to 2:30 if my memory serves me correctly). At first I thought that this set-up was the finish line and that this was a pretty lame marathon, eventually the presence of hundreds of cups of water and Gatorade clued me into the fact that I my original impression was a little wrong (though I still don't think that this marathon is quite on pace with the NYC marathon, which is the only other marathon that I have seen).



Eventually I made my way around the commons and came to the real finish line, which was next to the Metro Centre. This was a little more like what I expected at the finish line.



When I arrived the race was about 3 hours and 16 minutes old and a number of people were still making their way across the finish line. The good thing about my timing was that many of the people finishing were in pretty good shape and didn't look as though they were about to die. My other marathon experience would suggest that sometimes as these things drag on some of the participants don't look so good as they near the finish line (one guy I saw a few years ago looked as though he was about to die, which he may have as when I last saw him he was on the ground surrounded by paramedics and non-responsive).

After a few minutes of finish line action I decided to make my way back home. When I was about a block away from our apartment I noticed a car and a bus that seemed to be in a strange configuration. As I approached the scene it became clear that the car emerging from an underground parking facility had hit the bus as it was at a bus stop. The woman who was likely the driver was still talking to the bus driver, who didn't seem interested in moving any time soon. While neither vehicle seemed to have sustained much damage I do imagine that it will be pretty embarrassing for the driver of the car, who wants to be known as the person that managed to t-bone a parked bus?

The people I felt particularly bad for were the bus passengers. All of a sudden their bus trip was delayed quite drastically. I wonder how long it took things to get going again?