Today was the 28th Annual Columbus Marathon and 1/2 Marathon, and it was a packed house course with a full 10,000 runners participating in the race. Despite living in Columbus for the past eight years, this year was the first time I’ve ever watched the event.

Watched a marathon?

This year’s race course brought the runners right to our doorstep, quite literally. Even though the race didn’t actually start until 7:00am, the pre-race activities started early with the race volunteers setting up a water station in our front yard around 6:00.

I was on the porch, relaxing with some coffee, in time to see the race leaders cruise by our place, which sits right around the 11.5 mile mark. Amidst the nine thousand plus runners that followed I also caught a glimpse of a few friends during their trek.

It was cool to see the runners swerve over and grab a quick drink of water and/or Gatorade. I also heard more than a few runners ask for a Budweiser. Perhaps next year Carli and I will set up a beer stand! :)

More pics

During the three-plus hours that runners were shuffling past our house I was able to snap a bunch of pictures and uploaded them to Flickr. Go check 'em and out and see if you recognize any of the runners.