I was lucky enough to spend a day volunteering at the Maine Marathon in Portland. I was part of the medical staff that was in charge of catching runners as they crossed the finish line. Several of the runners would run themselves to exhaustion and would require assistance getting off of the course. I was surprised by this population of people because of how vast and diverse it was. There were people from all different age groups running this race. It was honestly quite exciting to see everyone come together and help each other finish the race. I think I had an expectation that the people that ran marathons were young, fit, and in perfect health but since this experience I have realized that is not the case. 

The most meaningful aspect of this experience was seeing everyone so happy. It is hard to explain but there was not an ounce of negativity at this race, people would run themselves to exhaustion and would still be so considerate, excited, and accomplished. One example of this was a runner that was starting to collapse just before the finish line, she was visibly weak and was starting to lose her balance. Another volunteer and I ran over and assisted her across the finish line and all she was able to say was “thank you, did I make it?”. This truly showed how dedicated these runners are to completing this race and it was honestly exciting to see how accomplished they were.

My learning goals were originally written for a different volunteer experience but because of scheduling I was reassigned to the Maine Marathon. I am certainly glad I was moved to the marathon as I had a great time and I am thinking about volunteering again next year. I truly felt like I was able to make a difference and help the population and I was pleasantly surprised by the experience.