With warm hearts and open arms

Opinion

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This article was published 15/06/2018 (2288 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s a lot more waiting at the finish line for competitors in Sunday’s 40th annual Manitoba Marathon than just participation medals and a glowing sense of satisfaction.

Runners who slog all the way to the end will be treated to what has become one of the race’s most beloved traditions — the Manitoba Marathon hug.

For the past 34 years, these heart-warming and restorative “hugs” have been dispensed by enthusiastic student volunteers from Dakota Collegiate in Louis Riel School Division.

For the record, these are probably not the kind of hugs you’re thinking of.

Instead of flinging their arms around finishers and chirping “Way to go!”, Dakota’s high-energy student huggers politely check on the condition of each and every runner and, if required, physically assist them to the recovery area, by wheelchair if necessary.

“It’s helping runners find their walking legs, making sure they’re OK until they get to the recovery area,” explained Dean Favoni, 49, the Dakota math teacher and varsity boys basketball coach who is in his 27th year recruiting and organizing the school’s legion of volunteer huggers.

“It’s essentially finding a runner, walking beside them and asking if they are OK and how their race was and if they need assistance right now.

“If they’re good, the kids move on to someone else. Otherwise, they stay with them. It could involve holding the person up if they need it.”

On Tuesday morning, as students slowly filtered into his math classroom, Favoni explained that getting kids to volunteer for the marathon, which comes in the midst of exam time, is a piece of cake.

In 1984, the first year Dakota supplied student volunteers for the finish line, about 30 kids signed up.

These days, the school typically sends a small army of 160 to 180 students eager to help anyone with the intestinal fortitude to make it to the finish line in any of the marathon’s multiple events.

“I put an announcement in and wait for them to sign up,” Favoni said. “It’s not hard. I’m maxed out in about three days. The ones who’ve done it want to return and word gets around it’s something great to be a part of.

“One of the things I’m most proud of is that, year after year, our school can provide this kind of assistance to the race in the middle of exams. Exams start the day after the race. The Manitoba Marathon is part of the school’s culture. Kids start asking in April if they can sign up.”

About 30 minutes earlier, at lunchtime, Favoni stood in the school’s theatre, packed with at least 180 would-be volunteers, and happily spelled out their duties on race day.

After piling on buses at 5:45 a.m. Sunday and heading to Investors Group Field, the students are responsible for everything from mixing up Gatorade to helping present medals in every event, except for the full marathon.

“But your biggest job of the day is a job we call hugging,” Favoni told the packed house of students. “This is not you saying to finishers, ‘Hey, you did a great job!’ You walk beside runners and ask, ‘Are you OK?’ It’s OK to put your arms around their waist.”

He touched on some of the gritty realities involved in helping runners who, in some cases, have literally run their guts out.

“Somebody is going to throw up,” he warned with a smile. “It’s almost always just liquid. We have sawdust at the finish line. Just throw sawdust on it.”

He also noted there is a remote chance the young huggers might witness a health emergency. “If, in the unlikely event that happens, they’ll ask us to stand around that person in a circle and protect them from onlookers,” Favoni noted. “That’s happened like once in 39 years.

“The best part of the day is hugging! Be super energetic. Be enthusiastic. It’s one of the very best days of the year. It turns into a lot of us clapping.”

In an emotional turn, Favoni introduced the students to the man who got him involved with the marathon in 1992, retired biology teacher and coach Jerry Ilchyna, who, at the age of 80, can still be found helping out at the finish line of every Manitoba Marathon.

“Mr. Ilchyna is the man who started Dakota students volunteering with the marathon in 1984,” Favoni told the kids. “Jerry ran the first marathon in 1979. He ran the first 20 miles in two hours; he ran the next six miles in two hours, which is really slow.”

It quickly becomes apparent that Favoni and Ilchyna, who retired in 1993, are members of a mutual admiration society.

“I don’t think he (Favoni) has an equal in terms of his involvement and sincerity,” Ilchnya said of the man to whom he handed the volunteer torch. “He still thanks me every year for getting him on board.”

Back in the early days, the retired teacher said the kids were called on to do a little bit of everything, from setting up pylons along the race course to staging pasta dinners to help runners carb up before the big day.

“Every Friday night before the race, there was a Spaghetti Fest for runners taking park in the Sunday race,” he said. “Sometimes we’d feed more than 2,000 runners on Friday night.”

However over the years, Dakota’s students have become experts in the fine art of “hugging” runners at the end of a race.

For 17-year-old Safia Mohamed, a Grade 12 student, the Father’s Day race will mark her third year assisting runners at the finish line.

“At first it was just an opportunity to meet people, because I came here new to the school and my sister said it was a great way to give back,” Safia said softly as pumped-up kids streamed out of the school theatre.

“It was a lot of fun, getting to see the faces of the runners and their accomplishments. I was really shy until I went to the marathon and then I broke out of my shell.”

It’s hard to be shy when you’re wrapping your arms around the waist of a sweaty runner who is on the verge of collapsing.

“It was very scary the first time,” Safia recalled with a smile. “When a person crosses the finish line, one of us will go up and ask them questions and say ‘you did a good job; do you want some water?’ If they’re fine, you can let them go. If they’re not, you can walk and talk with them.

“The first time I went there was a woman who could barely walk and we had to get her a wheelchair. We had a couple of people throw up and we’d help them get water. Most people, by the time you finish talking to them, feel fine and want to finish walking by themselves.”

Jill Mathez, Dakota principal for the past nine years, couldn’t be more proud of Favoni, Ilchyna and the student volunteers as the school heads into its 35th marathon on Sunday.

“You have more than 150 kids getting up at five in the morning in the midst of exams to take part,” Mathez gushed. “That’s what’s so marvelous about it. It’s one of the pillars of education: teaching kids to be citizens for the greater good. You’ll met kids 15 years later and the thing they remember is the Manitoba Marathon.”

Back in his classroom, moments before teaching the intricacies of modern math, Favoni is asked what he gets out of being the King of the Huggers year after year.

“Marathon day is one of my favourite days of the year,” he said without hesitation. “June can be a hectic and stressful time, but being there and seeing our students enjoying themselves and helping people out is very fulfilling. It’s nice tradition to carry on.”

As traditions go, it would be fair to say Dakota’s huggers welcome this one with open arms.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca