I talk about running a lot because, well, sometimes it feels like running is all I do! This week I actually get a break, though, because I ran the ING Miami Half Marathon on Sunday. It’s a beautiful race in which I participate annually, but I didn’t like it as much this year as I have in years past. Why? Because it was so darn crowded! On this, the 10th anniversary of the run, there were 25,000 participants – 8,000 more than there were in 2011 – yet there didn’t seem to be any extra water or any extra space on the course.
Although I felt crowded and like I spent the entire 13.1 miles bobbing and weaving around slower runners, one good thing about the extra bodies on the course was that there was always someone to talk to. Every few minutes, I’d fall into step with a new person and we’d shoot the breeze for a while. Well, these were total strangers to me, so we talked about what we had in common: what we saw as we passed through the race course. We discussed the cruise ships at the Port of Miami, we laughed about the drunk people stumbling out of the clubs on South Beach only to find tens of thousands of people running by, and we commented on all of the witty and sentimental signs that fans were waving.
Interestingly, many of the signs were provided by corporations. Baptist Health South Florida, for instance, gave spectators posters that included their logo and an encouraging message, but that also gave fans a place to write some words of their own – maybe a runner’s name or their own message of support. One gentleman noticed that half of Baptist’s signs were printed in Spanish and the other half in English, which is very indicative of our local culture. Being from the Midwest, he found that unusual so we chatted about the importance of the Latino population in South Florida and about Baptist’s position in our community. I’m sure that others also discussed the signs too because they were everywhere – that kind of conversation does a tremendous amount of marketing for just a few pennies per poster!
Another group whose signs got a lot of attention was Lululemon Athletica. Employees from their Miami Beach store set up a tent and waved placards with witty slogans: my personal favorite was “Who Needs Toenails?!” I tend to lose my toenails when I run – I’m down to 9 today – so it gave me a chuckle. At that point in the race I was still with members of my training group, and they all know about my feet so they were all sure to point it out to me. We laughed and then we talked about Lululemon and how we love their products. Our conversation elicited comments from several of the women around us, and we ended up spending about a mile talking about their “anti-stink” technology with total strangers. Again, a simple sign got a company great brand exposure.
My examples are isolated incidents; however, with 25,000 people in the race, seeing the signs that various corporations provided you know that others had similar conversations. The race attracted people from all over the world, so for a nominal amount of money Baptist Health and Lululemon managed to do some international marketing at the ING Miami Marathon and Half Marathon. Not bad for a Sunday morning!
Click on this YouTube video to check out the marathon course – it really is beautiful!
