Most people know I like to be busy and helping with races in some fashion or another....soooo as my first year in like 14 years of not running the 1/2, I thought maybe others would like a chance to see those first finishers, friends running, and uniquely dressed runners that are only visible to the  spectators!

With camera in hand, my first stop was Lake and Superior to catch the first 1/2 marathon runners. From there, we headed down towards the finish area to do more filming. (I apologize if I forgot some names of people who are in the video and for those I missed! My camera skills can use some work and I turned the sound off for portions where comments were being made by outside parties who preferred their voices not be on the tape.)

Back up to Lake and Superior to watch those first marathon finishers and I must say it was quite impressive to watch the clock and all the "escorts" the winner had with him! Having an American win and a Minnesotan was incredibly wonderful!!

Because I had a bike and was mobile, I moved down to the bridge just over the road into Endion Station and caught a former running mate Anne Seward from the Twin cities as she finished up ...what is impressive about Anne is that she is an amputee and also an awesome dedicated runner!

Moving on to the area across from the Aquarium was a great place to shoot video with no one in the way...unfortunately I encountered a very crabby control freakish security guy who made me move despite the fact that I was no where near the runners...There was a problem created by the construction ...spectators were walking right into the path of runners because there was no sidewalk and the runners were hugging the curve as they ran the tangent..so a few of us spoke with the other guy, the "nice" security man...who agreed I was not in the way and we got him to have people cross further up instead of walking into people...that solved the problem of people going one direction but not the other...so when crabby security guard approached us again, we asked him if he could do something about those people crossing in front of runners...all he had been doing was standing and talking to the other security guy not a dang thing besides that...his response was "worry about moving yourself, not the others" ...we tried to get him to do something about the others...he said we were the only problem and threatened to call someone in to have us removed...he never did help the other problem...I guess when you hire 300 pound guys to do security they don't understand how runners work...we were all very offended and forced to let the crowd continue yelling at people to stay off the course because he felt it was more important to just chat with his other guy instead of keeping runners safe ...I heard for TCM the security has to sign something stating they will be polite and respectful to people...wonder if Grandma's does that? The lady at Lake and Superior who had many more people to deal  with did an outstanding job of being polite, respectful and getting her job done!

I'm proud yet not one bit envious of everyone who finished yesterday in that horrible heat, humidity, and headwind (humidity and headwind I believe were worse for the 1/2)! I guess training on a treadmill in a hot room or training with a snowmobile suit is just going to have to be the regimine for Grandma's!

The link to the video is below! Please share it with others and let me know if you have any trouble viewing it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgb0JmcGAVM