17th October 2011 - Akron Marathon
Thousands run and cheer at Akron Marathon
Mike Beck cheers after Lisa Teti of Cuyahoga Falls accepts his proposal
for marriage at the finish line of the Akron Marathon on Saturday
in Akron. (Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal)
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He was a lone trumpet player, wearing a yellow-hooded sweatshirt and
sitting on his front stoop in Akron’s Firestone Park neighborhood.
As the lead runners in Saturday’s Akron Marathon passed by his
house, the man stood up, put his horn to his mouth and blasted a call
into the chilly September air.
The musician’s spirit and “charge” call summed up
the tone of the day as Akron was overrun with about 16,000 runners
and volunteers. The ninth annual race was watched by an estimated
100,000 people through the day.
While the race officially kicked off at 7 a.m, runners and volunteers
and an army of Akron police officers who were patrolling the streets
and blocking intersections had taken over downtown almost like an
occupying force by 5:30 a.m.
The runners headed north on South Broadway from the starting line
at the National Inventors Hall of Fame School. They eventually filled
both lanes of the All-America Bridge, as the faster runners had already
made the turn at Summa St. Thomas Hospital on North Hill and were
running south back toward downtown while the majority of the field
was still heading north on the Y-Bridge.
It took about 8 minutes for everyone to simply start the race. Everywhere
one turned, there were rich stories to be heard on a crisp morning
on the second day of fall.
Cardiac Athletes. A group of 20 runners
called Cardiac Athletes gathered for
pictures at the start of the race, having come from nine states across
the country. All had undergone some type of heart surgery and all
were in Akron to run the marathon, half marathon or relay.
Jeff Hardisty, 51, of Eugene, Ore. who had a triple-heart bypass,
was on a relay team. His father died of a heart attack at age 46;
he had his own heart attack at 46. “I have family history,”
he said. “I thought I was alone, and then I discovered Cardiac
Athletes. These are my people.”
Runner Jeff Burke, 50, of Stow, arrived at a city parking deck near
the starting line at 5 a.m. and spent 45 minutes making the contraption
he would carry during his marathon race, The retired Air Force first
sergeant, who served more than 20 years active duty and in the reserves
and had tours in Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan in recent years, attached
a wooden frame with a series of flags, including a POW-MIA, American
flag and a flag that features the symbol of all the branches of the
service, to a military backpack that he wore. He called it a tribute
pack.
“It creates awareness and helps people think of all the sacrifices
made by our veterans during a time when thousands of people are enjoying
the freedoms that veterans have fought to earn for hundreds of years,”
he said.
Burke, who finished the race in 5 hours and 36 minutes, said he likes
to see the reaction of the crowd along the race course. “I love
going through the neighborhoods and seeing people having barbecues
and big-screen TVs who make a day of it,” said Burke, who is
an investigator for the state.
Members of the Ellet, Garfield and St. Vincent-St. Mary high school
bands and the Kenmore High School Madrigal Singers stood along the
marathon course, playing and singing for the runners. There was an
Irish band playing tunes near Firestone Park, too.
Crowds of people filled the sidewalks along the race course. One couple
sat in lawn chairs with their two boxer dogs and watched. Runners
passed aid stations along the 26.2-mile course, and volunteers passed
out 260,000 cups of water. Racers and volunteers had the opportunity
to use 308 portable restrooms in the event sponsored by Time Warner
Cable.
Race officials said there were 11,086 adult marathoners, half marathoners
and relay team members, and about 2,000 more children who took part
in a Kids Fun Run, plus about 3,000 volunteers, about the same numbers
as last year.
Woman’s first race. One of the
racers, Kristin Brustoski, who because of spina bifida, uses a wheelchair
full time, took part in her first race Saturday, on a relay team with
the government agency where she works. She did the first section of
the relay, about 3.5 miles, in 40 to 45 minutes. “It was cool,”
said the 24-year-old woman from Fairlawn.
“I had a hundred people pat me on the back, all kinds of people.”
She said the feeling of being sandwiched in the middle of such a huge
throng of runners was incredible.
“It was a good rush to be in the middle of a sea of people and
hearing everybody running at the same time. It was a real cool sound,”
she said. As runners made their way on the race course, they passed
block parties and family parties. They saw people in bathrobes, and
even ran past a home on Wiltshire Road in West Akron where religious
songs were sung.
Machine makes bubbles. Up the street
from that spot was Eric Ball’s bubble machine. Ball, 53, has
been making bubbles his driveway for the race since the first marathon
in 2003. Now he owns an $80 bubble machine. Ball wore a Wile E. Coyote
suit, in honor of the former name of the race, the Roadrunner Marathon.
“It’s lots of fun,” said Ball, who said he is in
a transition period after a 20-year career in marketing and communications.
“It helps to have people on the way cheering you on and picking
up your spirits for the next mile or so.” One of the runners
he cheered up was Barry Goldmeier, an unconventional marathoner from
Rockville, Md., who not only ran the entire marathon, but also juggled
five bean bags the whole way.
“I have to stop to see where I’m going” along the
way, said the 47-year-old statistician for the Commodity Futures Trading
Commission in Washington, D.C. Asked why he runs and juggles, Goldmeier,
who finished in about 5 hours and 42 minutes, said, “It’s
just what I do.”
The race course, with relay runners scattered at stops along the way
and partyers everywhere, had a Dr. Seuss feel to it from the well-known
book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street because there was
such a mix of people and runners to watch.
Couple runs together. For runners Marci
Clemens and David Frederick, the Akron Marathon will always hold a
special place in their hearts. They met each other in 2008 when they
wound up on the same Bridgestone Law Department relay team in Akron.
They are still running together and plan to marry in November.
Clemens, 27, an attorney, who lives in Marion and works for the Ohio
3rd District Court of Appeals, ran the second leg of a Bridgestone
relay team.
Her fiance, Frederick, 29, of Cleveland, who works for the Justice
Department, ran the last leg of another Bridgestone relay team. She
said the race and the entire community were a sight to see.
“Everybody is pumped up,” she said. “It inspires
you to see thousands and thousands of people from out of town, navigating
their way in the streets in the dark before the race.” She said
there is an energy level that is unreal at the Akron Marathon. “It
is almost like an infection,” she said. “We feed off of
people. You strike up conversations with people you don’t know.”
As runners passed through neighborhoods, families in lawn chairs with
cell-phone cameras clapped, cheered and snapped pictures and video
and texted friends about what they had just seen. Volunteers handed
out glasses of water and other items for the racers. “Water,
water, water!” yelled one volunteer on Brown Street near the
University of Akron.
A proposal at the finish After Mike Beck, 36, and Lisa Teti, 27, of
Cuyahoga Falls, finished the half marathon together, he pulled a ring
out of a pocket of his water bottle, got on his knees at Canal Park,
where racers finished and where two dozen family members and friends
were watching, and made a bold statement and asked her an important
question. “I love you with all my heart,” he said. “Will
you marry me?”
Teti, a pastry chef and cake decorator at Akron’s West Side
Bakery, didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” she said. Beck,
a letter carrier, then stood up and raised both arms in happiness.
Across the race course, people had fun with signs. A sign at the bottom
of the hill on Garman Road, approaching Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens,
designated the steep Garman hill as “Heart Rate Hill,”
a twist on the famous “Heartbreak Hill” at the famed Boston
Marathon.
And one sign on the route was inspired by a running mother and told
the story of a proud child. “My Mommy Is Faster Than Yours,”
the sign read.
For more about Cardiac Athletes, go
to: www.CardiacAthletes.com.
Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.