On Sunday we got up so early it was practically still Saturday to go help out at the first DC marathon. Susan heads the Board of a Washington DC HIV-prevention organization that was among the marathon's charity beneficiaries, so she'd volunteered to head a water station along the route. That involved coordinating the efforts of a few dozen volunteers who would be showing up at a northeast DC street corner in the pre-dawn dark, getting ready for the moment when thousands of runners would stampede through with hands outstretched for cups of water or gatorade.

The day before, we'd gone to the DC armory to pick up the t-shirts and credentials for the volunteers. Until then, the marathon had been something of an abstraction to us. We knew that it would be the first marathon to traverse all four of the city's quadrants, a nice change from other races' tendency to stay in the wealthier and more picturesque areas. The race would benefit several DC organizations that focus on HIV and youth. We knew a lot of people had registered, but as we walked into the aisles of displays at the armory we began to appreciate the magnitude of the event. In addition to the registration desks for runners and volunteers, there were various local media outlets showing off their custom-painted SUVs, an enormous indoor climbing wall, and dozens of race-related retailers showcasing their wares. We had wandered into a parallel universe, one in which my six-mile runs through the hood amount to little more than an off-day's training. My favorite product being promoted was stick-on nipple protectors. Apparently by mile 26 one's nips can chafe something awful. This was illustrated by several photographs of men crossing the finish line with twin streams of blood staining their shirts. Oh, that smarts just to look at. (There must be folks out there who have a perverse fascination for blood production from the breasts; it's just too Christ + Mary to be overlooked by the more deviant Christian fetishists out there.)

So we got up to the bitter sound of alarm beeps in the dark and headed down to Mile 3, at the corner of 6th and Constitution NE. A truck had just arrived and started offloading all the supplies we would need to set up a water station, but in a predictable glitch, not all the items we expected were actually there. We'd been told to set up eleven tables, piled high with three tiers of half-full cups (stacked wedding-cake style, with stiff sheets between each layer) in order to have enough water stockpiled to hand to the runners as they passed. We were the first water station, so very few people would have dropped out of the race before they reached us, and the runners would probably arrive as a mob. And there were about 7,000 of them registered for the race.

As the sun came up and the streetlights flickered out, volunteers started arriving to help set up and staff the station. Susan's HIV-prevention organization focuses on young people in and around the District, so the volunteers were a young and diverse group. Few of us had any experience with an event like this, but there were a few serious runners who offered up advice on the best way to set up the station. It was interesting to watch the way that two dudes who were former marathoners kept up stream of comments throughout the morning to remind of others of their superior experiences in this regard. I suppose we're all like that -- eager to demonstrate a little mastery to the world. Goodness knows I don't shy away from sharing my experiences as a rescuer.

(Except that I often do. Aside from this site, where I tend to avoid contemplating the disconcerting attentions of readers, I often remain rather circumspect on matters related to the rescue squad. A casual acquaintance who hands me a conversational opening like fire or car wrecks or traumatic injuries sometimes leaves the exchange never knowing my own connections with the topic. I don't know why this is. I don't want to seem like I'm boasting, I guess.)

More supplies showed up, and everyone got to work preparing for the coming onslaught. I opened so many water bottles to fill small cups that I developed a raw spot on the inside of my index finger and thumb. We feverishly stacked and filled the paper cups emblazoned with the corporate logo of the Icelandic company providing spring water. (Iceland is the next Australia.) Others mixed Gatorade concentrate with water in big vats and filled the trademark green & orange cups with the piss-yellow fluid. The runners among us told us that when the marathoners arrived we should grab these cups off the tables and hold them in out, saying repeatedly "water, water" (or, presumably, "gatorade, gatorade") to let everyone know what we were proffering. Some people volunteered to shout to incoming runners and let them know where water and Gatorade were located, since the signs for the various fluidic offerings at our station were never delivered.

We learned the desirable way to hold out water, by loosely grasping the bottom of the cup so they can take it out of your hand without slowing down. Who knew there was a right way to hold out a cup? This led to a long discussion that we revisited on and off throughout the morning: how every human endeavor has its own insider details like this, that seem insignificant to others but make tremendous difference when you're in the know. There must be common archetypes shared by virtually every human pursuit -- everything that we do for self-fulfillment. As we stacked and filled cups, we posited some potential archetypes and tested them against our own obsessions, firefighting and Irish dancing.

"The pop-culture high-water mark," I suggested, "when everyone suddenly noticed."

"Riverdance, I guess," her face registered the dubiousness of this cultural moment.

"Backdraft," I said. "Or maybe 'Emergency!' "

"Or September 11, " she suggested. I momentarily considered how sad it will feel when America realizes firefighters are just as screwed-up as everyone else, possibly more.

"How about: the people whom the insiders look down on," Susan said.

"Um. Probably EMS people, I guess, for firefighters." This is a somewhat unfortunate reality among many hard-core fire-types. "You?"

"Possibly Morris dancers."

Then the first of the runners were bearing down on us. They looked... insane. These people were not running the marathon because it was a personal challenge; they were running it to win. They were a little scary in their intensity and angular fatlessness. They came in shouting for water and grabbing the cups and pinching them in one hand so the water sort of jetted into their faces and splashed onto the shoes of the freaked-out under-18 volunteers -- and then they were gone.

A couple minutes later, the rest of the pack arrived. Most looked more like I expected -- real people running a marathon who weren't all entirely sure they could do it but were game to give it a shot. Some said nice things as they went past, thanking the people who were offering water and Gatorade. We saw a good friend whom we hadn't even known was running. We held out the cups saying "water, water!" over and over and grabbing more from the tables behind us. And the people just kept coming. It was really impressive to see several thousand people squeezed into a narrow residential street at only the very beginning of a long race, with expressions of excitement and anticipation and perhaps some trepidation. Everyone along the sidewalks cheered them on. It was an impressive spectacle. The towers of cups we'd lovingly stacked deteriorated and threatened to vanish entirely, and still people kept coming. I started throwing out more cups, cranking open water bottles, and filling several at a time, like a crazed bartender on crack, to keep up with the demand. The chafed spot on my hand ached (it's hard to let this bother you while other people run a marathon in front of you). Gradually I realized I was filling faster than runners were taking the cups. The crowd was thinning out.

As the stragglers came through, I surveyed the scene. More crumpled and trod-upon cups littered the street than I have ever seen before. It went on for a full city block. Then I noticed the clothes. Strewn through the wet street were gloves, lightweight jackets, long-sleeve shirts, and other items the runners had shed as the morning grew warmer. As the street sweeping machines arrived to dispatch the cups, we gathered up more than an armload of clothing from our block alone.

This wasn't just confined to the water station. Every dozen feet or so along the entire early marathon route, cast-off clothes lay in gutters, on fences, and slung over low-hanging tree limbs. Apparently marathon runners know to wear things they don't mind jettisoning as the temperature and climate change. The clothes, we heard, were to be donated to shelters. There will be some awfully athletic-looking homeless people around here.

As we packed up the tables and trash, a few scattered people with marathon numbers pinned to their shirts continued to pass us by, many walking. Some seemed entirely ill-prepared for such a long race (one woman passed carrying her pocketbook) but they were universally good-natured and we cheered them on all the same.