The Boston Marathon

While attending college in Boston, I often watched the Boston Marathon, whose course was only a few blocks from my apartment. I was on the cross-country team in high school, where a race was 3 1/2 miles or so. However, I wasn't a very good runner - my legs are short and my oddly shaped feet always developed a wondrous pattern of blisters in the wafer soled Adidas we wore back then. Still, I identified with the marathoners in a way I never did with someone who played baseball or basketball.

Thirty years ago, it wasn't that difficult to get a good spot at the finish line and watch the runners on their final sprint down Boylston. This time, though, I decided it would be easier to watch from Kenmore Square, about a mile from the finish and the crushing crowds.


10:08am - The wheelchair runners started at 9:25, the women started at 9:35 and the men started at 10:00. All is quiet in Kenmore Square.


10:11am - Boston Police are out in droves - not just for the Marathon, but because for some perverse reason there's a Red Sox Game at 11:00am today.


10:58am - The first wheelchair competitors head down Commonwealth Ave.


11:25am - The crowd is still thin as the wheelchairers continue to zip past.


11:56am - A growing blare of sirens and a camera truck signal the approach of the first women runners.


11:57am - Alevtina Biktimirova of Russia and Dire Tune of Ethiopia run past my lamppost perch.


12:03pm - Just six minutes later the first male runner, Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya makes his way towards the finish.


12:06pm - Last years winning female runner, Lidiya Grigoryeva of Russia, looks pained.


12:45pm - Antoni Kot of Edinburgh looks intense.



12:48pm - Adam Mulia of New York looks... like an airplane?


1:01pm - The runners, coming thick and fast now, round the corner on Hereford Street. Only two blocks to go!


1:34pm - Tracey Martin of Chicago (official time 3:01:35) stands triumphant and slightly dazed amid the chaos near the finish line. "Can you tell me where the subway station is?" he asks.