Mile Twenty-Two Water Station

For six years, I've volunteered at the same water table during our city's marathon: mile twenty-two, a stretch on a long hill where runners hit their hardest moment. I'm there at six in the morning with a folding table, a stack of paper cups and a sharpie for writing encouragement on the cardboard signs.

The front-runners come through first, fast and silent. They grab a cup without looking. Then, for hours after that, come the real people: a man running in a banana costume, a woman pushing her son in a racing wheelchair, a group of firefighters in full gear, a grandmother of seventy-eight who told me, between sips, that this was her twentieth marathon.

At mile twenty-two, people's faces change. They stop smiling for cameras. Their legs are shaking. That's when I yell their names off their bibs. "Go, Priya! You've got this, Marcus!" Some of them look up as if they had forgotten anyone could see them. One woman stopped, hugged me, cried for a second and took off running again.

This year, a runner I'd cheered for in 2022 found me at the table. He said my voice had gotten him up that hill three years ago, and he'd come back just to say thank you. He handed me a medal he'd bought for me at the finish-line shop. It says "Best Cheerleader, Mile 22."

I keep it on my bookshelf. I'll be back next year with more cups.