Boston; by Mark Stickley.
Standing at the start for some 20 minutes, I re-evaluated my goals for the race. Sure, I'd like to run fast. But I knew I wasn't in shape to set a PR (personal record) or even come close. Coming off the winter, my training hadn't been up to par so I didn't expect to be real competitive. I had no delusions of grandeur.
If all went well, I'd be thrilled with a sub-two-hour-and-25-minute performance and/or a top-100 finish. Outside of that, well, just get me to the finish line so I can look back one day and say "Yeah, I ran the 100th Boston Marathon. And I fin-ished it, too."
OK, so it's a grandfatherly-type of thing to say but I've been feeling rather grandfatherly lately.
As the clock ticked down ever so slowly to starting time, I could feel the crowd squeezing in. What happens if I fall down and get trampled by 40,000 people? Would anybody notice? It wasn't a pleasant thought.
But alas, the gun sounded, the cannon fired, and we were on our way to Boston. I was moving, finally, albeit slowly. But I was stunned a few minutes later to see at least 1,000 people in front of me. How did they get there? The narrow road was absolutely full of people stretching some 200 to 300 yards in front of me.
And there I was, fighting to squeeze between people, darting this way and that, to get a little further up. I was after run-ning room but I couldn't get any. Not in that first mile anyway, which I passed in a dreadful 6 minutes and 10 seconds. Actu-ally, that was probably a good thing, considering I had no warm-up.
I moved up from there but it wasn't until three miles that I was running comfortably and unimpeded. And there was Ed! How did he get in front of me?
But the crowds of spectators along the way - it was absolutely incredible. I've never seen so many people in one day in my life. Estimates put the crowd at two million. It wouldn't surprise me. The course was lined, almost the entire 26-plus-miles - in some places 10-12 people deep on both sides.
Wow!
As I continued to move up the pack, the crowds continued to amaze me.
Everywhere there were people.
But the highlight, as expected, was Wellesley College near halfway. The
