110th Boston Marathon today

The Boston Marathon will kick off later today in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. The first Boston Marathon took place in 1897, and has been held every year since, it's the world's oldest annual marathon. There is a mystique about this race that no other race possesses.

About 22,000 runners are expected to take part in today's 26.2 mile event

Adding to the allure of Boston is that qualifying times, initiated in the 1970s, makes the race even more appealing to runners.

Am I good enough to qualify for Boston?

Once a runner is fortunate enough to qualify for Boston, it's not "should I run the Boston Marathon," but "where do I sign up?"

There are other ways to enter the Boston Marathon, such as taking part in a fund-raising effort, which is how Vanessa Kerry, daughter of Senator John Kerry got to run in last year's race.

Her father, as I chronicled in my old site, Blue States for Bush, claimed to have run the Boston Marathon--at a time when there were no charitable exemptions to enter the race--but Kerry's boast was never verified. Kerry's campaign staff claimed the senator ran it as an unregistered runner, a "bandit" in runner-ese.

I guess Senator Kerry got caught up in the Boston Marathon mystique.

But there is more than runner-elitism that makes the Boston Marathon the ultimate runners' experience. It's the course itself.

I've run (and yes, it's verifiable) three Boston Marathons. That's me up on top near the halfway point of the 2004 race on a 84 degree day. And the course, especially for an Illinois flatlander, is brutal.

At the beginning of the race in Hopkinton, the elevation is 500 feet above sea level. The first 16 miles of the race, until the town of Newton, runners enjoy mile after mile--with an interruption now and then--of downhill racing. At the Newton western town limits, the elevation is just 50 feet above sea level. But then, thousands of legs, accustomed to miles of down hills, have to contend with four miles of uphill pacing--finishing off with the storied Heartbreak Hill at mile 20.

Now about mile 20: Even in fast and flat marathons such as Chicago's, the vicinity of the 20th mile is where many runners "hit the wall." They get a somewhat sudden feeling of severe fatigue. Legs, up until this time which are fairly limber, become stiff, and as many runners phrase it, become as flexible as telephone poles.

At Boston, throw downhills and sudden uphills into the physical fray, and those same legs, rather than being telephones, feel like steel corkscrews.

Another Boston appeal for runners is the tremendous crowd support from the people of the Boston area. Almost every mile of the course is packed with local residents watching the race. Little kids have their hands out looking for "high fives." Entire families, some of whom have been coming out to watch the race for decades, camp out early to claim the prime viewing spots. People display chalkboards, which are filled in with race updates--who's leading, who won, or what the score in the Red Sox game is. Estimates are that over 1,000,000 people view the Boston Marathon each year.

The Boston Marathon takes place on Patriot's Day, a state holiday in Massachusetts, and in addition to the marathon, a Monday Red Sox day game is a longstanding Patriot's Day tradition.

Most of the late part of the race is run on Commonwealth Avenue, and it's back to downhills for the runners. Those steel corkscrew legs become bent corkscrew legs.

The crowd watching the race becomes bigger, and louder. Runners contemplating dropping out ditch such a notion as the enthusiasm of the crowd re-ignites their diminished physical state.

The last half-mile of the race is on Boylston Street, in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. Temporary bleachers are filled with people as the runners, many of them finishing hours after the first runner crossed the finish line, are cheered on by the crowds, as if they were champions.

Actually they are. Anyone who finishes the rugged Boston Marathon is a champion.

Previous Boston Marathon posts:

Hopkinton, Massachusetts braces for Monday's Boston Marathon
Tufts University president to run Boston Marathon
Chicago quadriplegic to compete in Monday's Boston Marathon

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