The first rule of transferring water or Gatorade into the hands of runners, according to a New York City Marathon volunteer veteran: Don’t step out into the road.
Marathon volunteers should stand next to the fluid tables and calmly face out toward the runners, says Jeffrey Laperuta, 75, who has volunteered at the Mile 3A fluid station nearly every year since 1984.
Keep one foot firmly on the curb to avoid getting in the runners’ paths.
“Stay back. Let the runners come to you. Just stay back. They will come,” Mr. Laperuta said, adding, “Don’t go out into the running lanes — you’ll get knocked down.”
The Mile 3A station is one of the first fluid stations on the course — not far from Mr. Laperuta’s home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn — and comes not long after runners descend from the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in the race’s first leg. From his vantage point at Mile 3, Mr. Laperuta can see the runners’ heads bobbing up and down on the bridge.
With a high potential for accidents and collisions, a lot of thought goes into ensuring that the handoffs go smoothly. Tables at fluid stations are staggered by the road to create pockets for volunteers to stand in. And cups are filled only halfway to limit spillage.
At each station, cups are lined up on tables several rows high, with cardboard sheets separating the layers. Volunteers constantly replenish them to try to keep up with the some 50,000 runners that will eventually pass by. As athletes toss their used cups, volunteers rake them away.
Mr. Laperuta, who has been in charge of his Mile 3 station since 2009, advises the many volunteers he oversees to try to lock eyes with runners as they approach, as a kind of pre-handoff acknowledgment.
He also instructs them to extend their arms outward as they hold the cups, so that runners can easily grab them and continue onward. Mr. Laperuta thinks it’s easier to hold the cups from the rim, but some opt to hold from the bottom.
He also tells volunteers to wear ponchos: “You’re going to get wet — make sure the raincoat is on.”
Mr. Laperuta has seen the handoff process evolve in his many years as a volunteer. At one point, marathoners were given water in juice boxes.
“It was a disaster,” he recalled, “because the runners couldn’t get the straws in the hole.”
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