Bonding on the schoolbus

I had, momentarily, toyed with the idea of placing in the Edge to Edge marathon. The time I had in the Okanagan in October would've made me the first female overall if I had run the same time at the E2E last year.
Driving in to Ucluelet I let all notions of placing go. The final 8 leg was exorbitantly hilly, and I run and train in a very hilly place. Michael and I were both astounded and amazed by the totally challenging terrain which would be coming at kilometre 34 when one is never feeling particularly good.
I said to Michael that I had only chosen this marathon for the scenery and for the opportunity to run on the beach and that I would not compete and that I would likely just leave my watch in the room so I didn't have to worry about time.
It was that bad.
And then I felt good: the pressure was off. It was just going to be a long run through some pretty areas and it would be one thing to check off my bucket list.
I caught the school bus to Tofino on race day and met some really cool people. One guy -Leon - had come up from Salem, Oregon to run his first marathon but forgot his bib which had the chip on it. Thankfully he noticed it early and jumped off the bus to go back to his room and retrieve it.
I also met Barb, a really friendly and engaging woman from Victoria who was running the first leg of the relay and who made me show her what shirt I was wearing so she could pick me out on the course and cheer for me as the bus drove past. At the start of the race Barb introduced me to a friend of her's named Heather who, like me, was aiming for a fun run and a decent pace.
I also met up with a coworker who was running it (she has numerous marathons and an Ironman under her belt) along with the four women that she had trained who were running their inaugural marathon also. They had shirts made up that said "Four Virgins and a Pro" which was much talked about at the event.
I caught up with Leon in line for the bathroom and he had his bib: yay! We had a great chat and he was a super personable guy and, even though I was running this event "alone" I was already feeling a very positive vibe.
Very small turnout: 126 to be exact.
In the prior 7 marathons I've run there is always some degree of jostling to get a good position and so I moved near the front of the line as we were getting ready to go.
No one went in front of me.
I knew there were people much faster than me and the etiquette is that they were supposed to be in front of me, but no one one wanted to be "in front". I actually tried to back up, but there was nowhere to back up to. There were some photographers there snapping pics and man do I wish I could see them because it would be me, front and centre - mildly horrified - with 125 people standing behind me. It was hilarious. And I was still about 7 feet away from the actual start line!