April 16 – 2 days to go -- 27,400 reasons for running Boston

April 16: Scheduled – rest.
Actual – ‘Eagles’ tune, take it easy!



After what seemed a rather early start -- less than 4 hours sleep will give one that perspective – we eventually arrived in what seemed to be a centre for a running cult. It wasn’t what I’d call an easy trip down to Boston even though only just over an hour flight from Montreal. Can anyone tell me why they need to scan your boarding pass 8 times when departing for USA out of Montreal? Eight times...this on top of another 6-8 visual checks of the pass. You may be able to tell that I was a little testy by time we shuffled through the interminable lines and what seemed a very inefficient system. Definitely one place one perhaps need 3 hours to clear security and customs?! We made flight, just barely, but with rather increased blood pressure.

As for the cult I spoke of, the running cult? As we drove into downtown Boston, it seemed that everyone was running; the streets were full of people running. Once we were in the very crowded sport expo, the sense of cult like status was enhanced as everything was about “the marathon”. Also impressive was the number of very fit people at the expo: everywhere you looked, there were fit, athletic people milling about.

Fire station by the finish line

Picked up race package and got my hands on the ‘bib’, the number that was my passport into the race on Patriots Day Monday, then shuffled down the line to get my participants t-shirt. If I ever had any doubts that this wasn’t official, the bib and t-shirt dispelled any doubts. It wasn’t even 10h00 but already it was getting rather crowded so we made a reasonable quick tour of the expo, checking out new shoes, picking up food samples and even getting my running gait analyzed, essentially as part of a sales pitch but painless.

Map of the course

Before we left, we ran into some old friends from Calgary that I hadn’t seen in several years that resulted in lots of excited catch up chatter. The running world is another one of those things that connects you to others – and I didn’t even know how committed a marathoner my friend was so great to share “war stories”.

Blast from the past

Worn out by the travel and the crowds, we headed off to book into hotel, have lunch and then an hour nap to try and catch up on rest a wee bit. We needed to be fresh for a night out in Beacon Hill, catching up with an old high school friend who now lives in Boston over some great food and lots of laughs. This marathon stuff is hard work!