The Soweto Marathon is one of the highlights on the national road running calendar in South Africa. I'm not quite sure how many runners do the race but it is certainly one of the 'flagship' races amongst runners of all ages. This year saw quite a big BTG initiative planned, with an entire weekend itinerary organised between Thesis Run Cru (as the host crew), Braamfie Runners and East Run Cru.
In addition to designing all the pre-event collateral for social media, I managed to get capture various crew members along both the 21km and 42km routes, with the cheer zone for the marathon located at around 38km.
It really is something special seeing people's reactions as they come into the cheer zone, the confetti guns go off, and they get offered a cold one. There's something so uplifting about rallying around a runner who is fighting an internal battle to finish the race, and the cheer zone is that little motivator that pushes them just a little bit further.
The essence of the marathon and the cheer zone was what I tried to capture with this set of photos, especially with the cheer zone being such an integral part of crew culture.
