My favorite spectators are the ones that are super loud and kind of crazy, making me laugh. Running 26.2 (or 13.1) miles can be pretty boring, and we look forward to the crowds to distract us. I think I can speak for most runners when I say that we LOVE loud spectators. I wish I'd have heard them, because I would have spoken up in Jerry's defense. Jerry just started dancing around and yelling louder. He told her, "I know he's loud, we can move somewhere else." Basically, a passive aggressive way of telling Jerry to shut up. A woman was complaining loudly to her husband that "the guy next to her" was "too loud and annoying". Jerry later told me that the people next to him were talking about him. We were high-fiving the runners, and cheering for them by name, if they had their names on their shirts. The runners seemed to love him, and a lot of people went out of their way to go high-five him for his enthusiasm. Jerry is great in a situation like that, because he's loud. It seemed they would cheer only for the runner they were there to support, but other than that, they were pretty quiet. Maybe it's because I just got back from Chicago, but I was kind of surprised at how unenthusiastic the spectators were at that spot. I started bouncing around, ringing the cowbells, trying to stay warm. I had on jeans, three long-sleeved shirts, a hat, and gloves, but my feet and hands were numb. We found a spot to hang out for a while, and as soon as we got there, the wheelchair participants were coming through-perfect timing! I was absolutely freezing by that point. The People Mover took us right where we needed to be. Neither of us had ever used it before, but it's not a complicated set of trains or anything-it's just one train a few cars long that goes in circles around one track. We parked what ended up being kind of far from that spot, so we decided to try out the People Mover (a little train that goes overhead around the city). Mile eight is just after the runners come out of the tunnel from Canada back into the U.S. We decided just to skip the starting line and head right to mile eight. We were a little late getting out the door, so we arrived in Detroit at 7:00-which is when the race started. I brought a couple of signs (one said, "The faster you run, the sooner you're done" and the other was my favorite sign that I saw while running in Chicago: "Remember when you thought you couldn't do this?"), as well as a couple of cowbells for Jerry and I. I didn't want to miss out, though, so I decided to go cheer on the runners. I ran the race last year, and would have loved to run the half-marathon this year, but it wouldn't have been a good idea since I just ran the Chicago Marathon a week ago. I woke up at 5:00 this morning to get ready to drive up to Detroit to spectate the Detroit Free Press Marathon.
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