Guernsey runner who flew to Chicago alone finds strangers cheering him on every mile

Ethan Woodhead, 24, travelled from Guernsey to Chicago on his own for Sunday’s marathon and expected to run it that way, with no friends or family on the route, the BBC reported.

His uncle Phil didn’t like the idea. So he wrote a post in the Facebook group for Chicago Marathon runners and spectators: if you have no one to cheer for, cheer for my nephew on my behalf.

There was something in me that hated the idea that nobody would be there to support him, so I thought why not ask people at the marathon to give him a cheer.Phil Woodhead

The post picked up thousands of likes and hundreds of comments and shares. Before the race had started, Phil said, he had hundreds of messages from strangers saying they would be there. One of them, Megan Arseneau-Schutzbach, reposted it on Instagram to find “one more person” to cheer, NBC Chicago reported.

Ethan knew nothing about it until he looked at his phone on race morning and saw the comments coming in.

Then he ran. People screamed his name. There were homemade banners, confetti, a dog sitting beside a sign reading “LET’S GO ETHAN!”. He blew kisses and high-fived people and, he said, wanted to stop and hug them.

I didn’t expect one person to know me, I travelled here on my own, but I had people screaming my name, confetti, homemade banners and I’m just lost for words.Ethan Woodhead, to the BBC

He finished in 2 hours 31 minutes 31 seconds, two minutes faster than he had ever run a marathon. He rang his uncle afterwards and told him there had been cheers on every street, on every mile.

“It didn’t cost anyone anything,” Phil said. “It was just pure love.”