Some kind of 'thon' in Cancun

Yesterday I took the shuttle from the airport. I had a front-row seat with the driver. There was a detour, with one side of the road closed off, and lots of police lining the street. The driver told me there was a <insert Spanish word here that I didn't understand> going on, and said something about bicycles. I figured out that he meant a race.

Then we passed the racers, and they were on foot - some were staggering, some were walking, some were walking fast, and others were sort of jogging. I asked him where the bicycles were, and then he said <insert another Spanish word here that I didn't understand>. Again he mentioned bicycles. Ah - I get it - it's a marathon, like a triathlon? "Si", he said - a triathlon.

I never did see any racers other than the walkers, so I'm not sure how it all worked out. But I saw lots of water bottles and cups strewn all over the road - hundreds. I was thinking that someone was going to have a lot of fun cleaning up the mess. And then I saw a man with the ultimate Mexican broom - the end of a tree branch with lots of little branchlets. The man was sweeping the branch lightly over the cups and bottles, and it was large enough and flexible enough that it quickly resulted in a large pile of trash. Those of you who read my broom blog entry might understand how that broom would be of interest to me. It was an eco-friendly broom.