of 11
2. Make a Difference Day
For Make a Difference Day I volunteered to work the 34th Marine
Corps Marathon.
The marathon lasts a few hours but the preparation and pre-marathon
activities take much longer.
Planning takes the better part of a year
Setup and teardown run about two weeks
Apre-marathon exposition runs for two days, leading up to the
event
3. Make a Difference Day
I helped with the setup, operation, and teardown of the Health and
Fitness Expo
The Expo is where runners go to pick up their race packets and see
products offered by race sponsors and other vendors
Race packets include the runners bib and official Marine Corps
Marathon shirt
4. Health and Fitness Expo
Setup - 21-22 October 2009
Vendors arriving at expo hall, 8:00am on the 21st
5. Health and Fitness Expo
Operation - 23-24October 2009
90,000+ people passed through the Expo in 2 days
6. Health and Fitness Expo
Tear Down 10:00pm 24October 2009
What took 2 days to setup, takes 4 hrs to clear out
7. Marathon DayOctober 25, 2009
Once the Expo wrapped up, we rushed back to the hotel for a quick
nap, then it is off to the Pentagon parking lot by 4am to begin
preparing to help runners prior to the race.
The race starts promptly at 8am so there is a very small window of
time to fix last minute problems runners have, such as lost bibs or
where they can find the charity they might be running with.
8. Start Line
With close to 30,000 runners, the queue stretched 1600 ft from
start line to last runner
9. Course Map
10. Marathon Finish
The top runners will complete the 26.2 mile race in a little over
two hours
11. After The Top Finishers
Miles, the Marathon Mascot, helps encourage runners to push to the
end
Careful if you come to watch, you just might get motivated to try
to run yourself next year
