Look beyond the thousands of runners Sunday at the starting line for the 26.2-mile course, and you'll see a group of eager bicyclists.
Should you be near the starting line for Sunday’s Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Marathon, take a look a few blocks beyond the thousands of runners eagerly awaiting the race to begin. There you’ll see a group of bicyclists just as eager for the starting gun to go off.
These are the marathon’s bike escorts, the 50-plus volunteers who will accompany the lead runners and others along the entire 26.2-mile course that begins at City Hall. As bike escorts, our job — this will be my fifth year riding — is to accompany runners, helping to guide them, giving them support and generally making sure nothing bad happens along the way. Our instructions are simple: Stay with your runner and be prepared for anything. “I tell the bikes to let the runners decide how to use you,” said Dawn Rana, the cycle lead captain . She’s charged with recruiting enough cyclists to accompany the lead runners in Sunday’s marathon as well as those in Saturday’s 5K and 10K. ATTENTION PICKLEBALLERS: Indoor franchise coming to San Antonio in early 2025 While most of the time the marathon goes off without a hitch, a few years ago a runner passed out while on the course. It was the runner’s bike escort who stayed with them until medical help arrived. Five cyclists are assigned for each of the four marathon groups , with the five fastest runners in each category getting their own escort. But cyclists aren’t assigned to individual runners. Instead, they follow the place number. In other words, if a rider is following the runner in first place , and that runner is passed by the person who was in second place , the rider will then start following Runner B, the new leader. Meanwhile, the cyclist who had been following Runner B will now be escorting Runner A, who is now in second place. It can be a bit confusing. Escorts are not supposed to get in the runner’s way, physically or mentally. I’ll touch base with my runner to let them know I'm there, but from then on I let them take the lead as to whether they want to talk. Some runners are chatty, others are all business. Indeed, the only time I’ve ever had a real conversation was the year my runner told me he was training for the Olympic trials. Following his training schedule meant he wouldn’t be running the full course. I tried explaining that, for what it was worth, he was one of the lead runners and that he might want to see how well he could do. Didn’t work. At Mile 17, he peeled off and met some friends waiting in a car. Four-time escort Alex Shiver, on the other hand, said he’s often been drawn into deep conversation with his runners. “I enjoy talking to them, as long as they want to,” said Shiver, who works for H-E-B. “I find out so much about them and I get a lot out of our conversations.” Escorts also have to decide where they want to ride with their runners. Some are leaders, others followers. I tend to ride behind my runner so I can see what’s ahead for both of us. That’s come in handy when, two years in a row, dogs have suddenly bolted into the street, chasing after my runner. Fortunately, I saw them coming and was able to quickly cut them off. Yelling loudly also helped, startling them into giving up the chase. Sometimes, however, riding too close behind a runner may not be such a good idea. One year, Shiver’s runner asked if there were any portable toilets coming up. When he said he didn’t know, the runner told him to fall back a way. “He then proceeded to use the rest room while he was still running,” Shiver recalled with a laugh. Sylvia Rodriguez, an escort for two years, said she prefers riding in front of her runner. MAKING THE CUT: Faded Culture barbers have over 1M YouTube subscribers “This way I can warn them of any potholes or debris on the road,” she said. “Once on the Greenway trail, there was this big tree branch that I was able to get out of the way in time.” For experienced riders, escorting a marathon runner isn’t all that difficult. The Internet tells me the average marathoner runs at about a 10 mph clip; elite runners can reach speeds of up to 13 mph or more. That's not an unreasonable pace on a bike. Escorting the wheelchairs is a different story, however. They can move fast, as fast as 30 mph or more going downhill. I've yet to volunteer for one of those spots. You might think that San Antonio is pretty flat, but bike riders know it has plenty of hills, Raul Rios has been an escort for more than 10 years. He recalls the time he had to climb one of the course’s steeper hills while following a particularly fast female runner. “I had to stand up on my bike to keep up with her,” he said. “The hill didn’t bother her at all. She was freaking amazing.” According to Rana, riders volunteer for a variety of reasons. They like the fact that they’re riding alongside elite runners, they want the race to reflect positively on the city, and they also want to show that San Antonio has a vibrant biking community. I do it because being a bike escort gives you a unique view of the city. There’s the excitement of the salute to the military in Brackenridge Park, water stations filled with enthusiastic volunteers and music stages where bands play as much to encourage runners as to keep themselves warm. But since the race leaders are, by definition, out in front of the pack, things can be pretty quiet at times. You get a front row view as the city slowly wakes up on a lazy Sunday morning. It’s during those stretches, as you watch neighborhood residents straggle out of their houses, coffee cup in hand, that you may find yourself contemplating your runner’s efficient, machinelike stride. They look like they could run forever. It's both impressive and a bit overwhelming. Suddenly, however, your reverie is broken when the full and half marathoners, who long ago split in different directions, meet again for the final two and a half miles to the finish line. During this stretch, the halfs are supposed to stay on one side of the road, the fulls on the other. Yet some of the slower, more inattentive runners will invariable veer into the fulls’ lane. This is the escort’s big moment, when we have to ride ahead of our runners, cutting through the amblers like an ice breaker in the Arctic. “Full marathon runner coming through, move to the right!” we shout again and again, startling the more oblivious runners, a surprising number of whom are wearing headphones and so don't hear you until the very last moment, like rabbits flushed from the brush. It’s my favorite part of the race. Problem is, shortly after that high we have to exit the course before reaching the final chute at the University of Texas at San Antonio's downtown campus. Organizers don’t want us bikers riding across the finish line and messing up the photos, so for us the race ends several hundred yards early. Lost in the finish area crowd we don’t get the opportunity to congratulate our runner, who we may have gotten to know over the previous hour or more. And they don’t get a chance to thank us for watching over them either. I’ll admit I always feel something of a letdown, although within a few hours I’ll be thinking about doing it all again next year. That’s why I called Jenny Carnes, president and CEO of San Antonio Sports, which recently announced that, in 2025, it will be taking over the renamed San Antonio Marathon. She’s got plenty on her to-do list and at the moment, she said, bike escorts are far from the top of her agenda. “We’ll be looking at everything, from routes to soliciting sponsors to safety precautions,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll get to bike escorts.” I’ll be available to talk when she does.
San Antonio Sports Dawn Rana Alex Shiver Raul Rios Sylvia Rodriguez Jenny Carnes ATTENTION PICKLEBALLERS Rana San Antonio Greenway Arctic Brackenridge Park Rock 'N' Roll San Antonio Marathon Olympic San Antonio Marathon Runner B 10K 5K H-E-B Youtube Shiver MAKING THE CUT
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