“You have to get out of the typical runner mindset to understand,” said the veteran runner who gave us a pep talk while pouring water into every cup.
Spent the weekend as one of the support crew at an aid station for the Cebu International Marathon 2026. What I thought would simply be a night of providing much-needed hydration to exhausted full marathoners turned into another learning chapter in this sport.
Those who have been following this blog have probably seen the transition from traveling and hiking to joining running events since post-pandemic—from marathons to ultramarathons, trail races, and everything in between. And there’s a reason why, despite the pain, the muscle cramps, the expenses, and the commitment of training your body for these events, we still keep coming back: it’s fun.
A couple of medals accumulated, maybe even a trophy if luck decides to favor you, and countless interactions with fellow runners can sometimes make us think we already know everything. And before we know it, we become a little too quick to criticize, a little too demanding, and a little too disappointed whenever events don’t turn out the way we expected. I had my fair share of rants, too.
As a far-from-exemplary participant who either finishes as a buzzer-beater or ends up with a DNF in some cases, you’ll realize just how punishing these events can be. They’re definitely not made for the weak-hearted. You get to experience arriving at aid stations with almost no food left because supplies have already run out, getting battered by unforgiving weather conditions, or even being mocked for being too slow or not fitting into the typical athletic form. Even so, we keep going because, again, it’s fun—a rather odd definition of how we find redemption and peace amid the pain.
In moments of introspection like these, we often see running events only from our perspective as runners. We want the full experience. We want exactly what we paid for. We want the best race possible. And who wouldn’t?
But in reality, organizing an event isn’t like a short-distance race that you can simply breeze through without proper preparation. It demands coordination, logistics, planning—the math, the economics, the science, even politics—and countless moving parts that participants rarely get to see.
Our task that night was just to provide hydration and make sure runners had cold water or electrolytes to sustain them through the event. But what I witnessed was so much more than that. I saw people managing aid stations, coordinating with race heads, stepping in to help each other across different tasks, constantly reminding everyone to stay safe along the roads, owning up to mistakes caused by miscommunication, and adapting to problems as they came. Everyone was committed to one goal: ensuring the safety of the participants and the success of the event.
It was a completely different perspective from how I had always seen running events. And it makes you reflect on your own expectations as a participant, too. Sure, no event is perfect. Every race has its own selling point—the tourist spot, the challenge, the experience, the medal, or whatever fueled you to sign up in the first place.
But behind every hydration cup, every marshal directing traffic, every volunteer cheering despite being just as exhausted, and every organizer trying to keep everything together is a group of people who chose to spend their own time making sure thousands of runners get to chase a finish line.
And maybe that’s what we sometimes forget when we view races only through the eyes of a runner. Sometimes, you have to step out of that mindset to truly appreciate the race—not just the one happening on the course, but the one happening behind the scenes.
Dakilanglaagan 