CARLTON FLETCHER: Albany Marathon is about runners’ stories

Every picture tells a story, don’t it?

— Rod Stewart

We proclaim, with justifiable civic pride, that the Snickers Marathon is about our community. When race participants rave over the support they received from the time they arrived in town until they were packing up to head home, every single person who touched the race in some way feels he or she performed worthwhile civic duty.

And they’re right.

As race director/Convention & Visitors Bureau Director Rashelle Beasley said Saturday, “We couldn’t do this without our volunteers and without the whole community getting involved.”

Of course, those who had an up-close-and-personal ringside seat that offered a glimpse at the job Beasley and her staff did know that the detailed planning that makes the marathon so special starts in the offices of the Bridge House Welcome Center on Front Street.

But Beasley has a point when she lauds the communitywide effort. Counting those who lent their hands at the downtown Mardi Gras festival that followed the marathon, more than 2,000 volunteers were on hand to make sure the day went off without a hitch. Seventeen hundred of those were on board for the marathon.

Heck, each of the 1,509 participating runners could have been assigned his or her own personal volunteer and there would still have been a couple of hundred left over to put out any grass fires that popped up.

That’s community spirit.

But as much as the Snickers race was about the volunteers and planners and sponsors, it was quadruple that amount about each of the runners. Those who attend — even the ones who are merely spectators — are treated every year to as many unique stories as there are participants.

More than just the fun of seeing a glamorous local TV anchorwoman unglamorously sweating her way across the finish line or doing a double-take when Batman runs by or seeing a runner acknowledge her fun-loving cheering section holding up signs that say “Smile If You’re Not Wearing Underwear” and “Just ‘Chafing’ The Dream,” there are as many stories at the finish line as there are runners.

Who will ever forget Air Force Airman Ashli Hostettler-Six crossing the finish line at the end of a 13-mile run and seeing her “best friend” become her fiance by dropping to a knee and proposing to her? And who will deny the athletic grace of Chris Zablocki, the 26-year-old medical student a few years removed from being cut by his high school soccer team who decided maybe distance running was more his sport?

Most who encountered the lovely Maurya Lacey of Atlanta will remember her dedicating her winning half-marathon race to her friend Isaac, a fellow Runningnerds teammate who had suffered a stroke recently and whose name was written on her arm in bold black marker, than they will the fact that she was finally, on Monday after emails sent on her behalf to The Albany Herald, rightfully named the race winner rather than runner-up.

(Some will also remember Lacey’s graciousness in accepting the mix-up as human error rather than making a fuss over a regrettable but understandable mistake.)

Then there’s 72-year-old Air Force veteran Pruett Burge of Warner Robins who not only copped to once being an attorney, he admitted that he took up running in ‘03 (when he was only 61) because it was a perfect opportunity to chase women. That, plus the fact that running 26.2 miles on any given weekend keeps him from having to update his latest honey-do list.

“The only thing is,” Burge confessed, “with all those women I’ve been chasing in these races … I haven’t caught one yet.”

Yes, the marathon is about its participants’ stories, about Milwaukee best friends Haley Holm, 19, and Haley Florsheim, 18, who met up in Greenville, S.C., where Holm is attending Furman University, and came to Albany to run a half-marathon during their spring break. (Florsheim is attending Georgetown.) They stuck around for the Mardi Gras celebration and delighted in all that was going on around them.

“We had no idea it would be like this; it’s so big with all this going on,” the pair said as they ate icees on the western steps of the Flint RiverQuarium beside the waterfall. “This has been so much fun for us. We definitely want to come back.”

Those are the kinds of stories that, for Albany, have very happy endings.