magid

Thanks to MAB, I had a parking spot, so I could maximize my time at the race. I'd forgotten how wonderful it is. Scary (there are a lot of people insane enough to run 26 miles), and wonderful.

The first wheelchair athlete (runner seems wrong, but so does wheeler, while "athlete" is too generic, not indicating sport. Suggestions?) came by to great cheers from the crowd; the race was finally here. I was surprised at how long it was until the next wheelchair came by, and then they started passing more frequently, still in ones and twos. The chairs were the kind I was expecting, with tilted-in wheels, and a third small wheel out in front, but I was surprised to see some where the hands were out in front, looking rather like a hand-pedaled bike (except the hands were moving in tandem). Women wheelers passed by, also moving fast.

We grabbed lunch, then came back to find we'd missed the first women, though we still caught some of the elite runners. I'm glad they've changed the race to have the elite women start half an hour before the men; it's much easier to see their race, rather than it being caught up in the second-tier men.

Less than half an hour later, the men started running by, the leaders looking like they could run forever, off the edge of the world, into myth, their strides strong. As more people passed, and Beacon Street filled with runners, there was more variation, some smiling, some exhausted, some walking, some jogging, some moving strongly. And the crowd cheered them all. Some more than others, of course. One man fell flat on his face, not twenty feet from me. Someone offered water, and yelled for the police, who ran over, and a medic biked up, parking the bike to shield the runner from oncoming people. And then the man knelt, and the cheering intensified. And he stood. And started walking, trailed by the medic on the bike. And the crowd gasped and hit a new crescendo as within a dozen paces, he started running again. Impressive, and scary, at the same time.

It shouldn't surprise me by now, but everyone has a different style when running. Some slog, some sprint, some prance, some hold their torsos completely still.
I joined the Children's Hospital crowd. Every Children's runner got a huge cheer as s/he ran by the station, and I was glad to be there in time to see the two runners I know go by, each of them running strongly (they both finished in under four hours, and neither of them is young). Runners for other medical institutions also got big cheers.
I got to see the Hoyts.
There were lots of people with costumes, above and beyond writing names or slogans on themselves or their T-shirts.
- I don't know why there were a number of Japanese runners who had three flags sticking out of their Camelbaks.
- And I can't imagine how hot it was for the guy running with the head part of a whole bunny outfit. The other person in just bunny ears must've been much cooler.
- Someone running in socks.
- People running with a flagpole over one shoulder.
- The guy in a ballerina outfit.
- A guy wearing a cardinal's hat. Or perhaps it was a papal hat.
The parties on the sidewalk sometimes felt banal compared to the trial the runners were putting themselves through, especially if they weren't encouraging the runners somehow (cheering, giving out water, whatever).
It was hot yesterday. OK, 70 F or so, but bright sunlight. A lot of runners wore hats, but many didn't, and I could see some nice sunburns...
I wonder what it's like to run with a continual wave of cheering going along with. Towards the beginning, when the racers weren't constant, I imagined the cheering as recurring ripples, flowing from the athlete ahead into the crowd.
Everyone has a story, but somehow that seemed more apparent as I watched the race. I know some were running as a fundraiser, others for the physical challenge, and so on, but there are so many paths to this one converging point...