Long Road to Boston: The Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Marathon

FOREWORD

By Bart Yasso

The course of the Boston Marathon hasn’t changed very much over the past one hundred and twenty years. Hundreds of thousands of runners have left Hopkinton and have moved in almost a straight line, with only a handful of turns, to Boylston Street in Copley Square. When the gun goes off, we all travel the same path to the finish line.

But each one of those runners takes a different route to get to the start line. What prompts all of us first to do a marathon, then to strive for and achieve a qualifying time, then actually to run the Boston Marathon? I’ve talked to thousands of Boston runners over the past thirty-five years, and every story is different.

I first ran Boston in 1982, the year of the famous duel in the sun between Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley. On my first visit, I spent a lot of time before the race walking around the city, and discovered first-hand what so many people had told me about the atmosphere on marathon weekend. As soon as people find out you’re a runner, they want to know where you’re from and every detail about your story. Wherever you go that weekend, people are talking about the marathon.

Since then, I’ve been to Boston every single Patriots’ Day, a few times as a runner but mostly in my capacity as Chief Running Officer of Runner’s World. I’ve seen the race transform from a fairly small event populated by very fast athletes into an enormous spectacle that has become the ultimate goal for the everyday runner.

What makes the Boston Marathon special is its unparalleled history. It’s not the most picturesque marathon course in the world. It’s not run at the best time of year; the weather can be very unpredictable. But what no other event can match is the one-hundred and twenty years of tradition. There are runners who have been back every year for decades. There are families who have shown up to the same location as spectators every year for generations. Because the race is run on a holiday, it’s like a party on the streets.

The race has changed, but the tradition hasn’t. Thirty years ago, a small group of runners gathered every April in tiny Hopkinton. Now it’s a field in the tens of thousands. The first few years I ran Boston, there were spectators edging onto the course; by the time you got to Commonwealth Avenue, it was so narrow in some places that runners were traveling almost in single file. If you wanted to pass someone, you had to tap him or her on the shoulder and ask him or her to move over. Now it’s a highly organized, professionally run event run by an extraordinary team. Once upon a time, when you got to the finish line, you got the time that was on the clock when you crossed. Now there’s a sophisticated chip timing system, one of many technological improvements to racing.

What also hasn’t changed over the decades is the passion of the runners who seek an invitation to run Boston. Every year, I’m amazed by the stories of people who have made the Boston Marathon the most important item on their bucket list, the pinnacle of their running career. Some people train for years just to get in. The qualifying standards are a big part of the appeal: runners know that it’s not a free ticket. You have to earn the right to a bib number in Boston.

Mark’s story is a perfect example. He’s been running marathons for more than a decade and started getting closer to qualifying in his sixteenth marathon. Like so many other runners, he didn’t give up. I admire the commitment, persistence and determination of all the runners who have made Boston a significant goal in their lives. I never get tired of meeting the runners who are doing Boston for the first time and seeing how much it means to them. In my experience, the most amazing stories are in Boston, because runners have gone through so much sacrifice just to get there.

The Boston Marathon continues to be a magical event I look forward to every year. This book captures exactly why it’s the most prestigious and most cherished race on the planet.

"Running is a big question mark that’s there each

and every day. It asks you: Are you going to be a wimp

or are you going to be strong today?"

PETER MAHER

PROLOGUE

May 18, 2014

It’s the final mile of the Poconos Run for the Red Marathon in Stroudsberg, Pennsylvania, and I am still on pace to achieve the goal I’ve been working toward for years: to run the fastest marathon of my life and qualify for the world’s most coveted race, the Boston Marathon.

But there’s a problem, sneaking up on me like footsteps from behind: my calf muscles are gradually starting to seize up. It is, lamentably, a familiar development: this has happened to me in at least five other marathons and it rarely ends well. It starts with an occasional twinge every few minutes, harmless but ominous. Once in a while, if I’m lucky, it doesn’t escalate from there. More often, though, it steadily intensifies until there is a painful, debilitating and soul-crushing spasm every time my foot strikes the pavement. In one race, even after I stopped running and started walking, the contractions were so intense and incapacitating that I almost fell over.

I dread this possibility in every marathon. No matter how smoothly the race is being run, the backs of my legs are always in the back of my mind. Will it happen? How soon? And how bad will it get?

Here in Pennsylvania, it’s still manageable, but my stride is changing from a solid, controlled pace to a quick, desperate shuffle. I feel like Lightning McQueen in the opening scene of my son’s favorite movie, Cars, hopping frantically toward the checkered flag with two flat tires and a pair of challengers bearing down on him. How long will it be before I am walking or stumbling, watching the minutes pass me by like faster runners, until my goal is lost one more time?

As I’ve learned from experience, no matter how well you are doing halfway or even farther into a marathon, you can never be optimistic until you see the finish line. You can run a great race for 20 miles, then blow it all if your legs or your energy give out. It’s like mounting an incredible comeback in a championship basketball game, standing at the free-throw line with a chance to sink the go-ahead points, and watching your shots clunk off the rim like bricks. A marathon can create such fulfilment and validation, but when it falls apart, it can shatter the spirit. You slow down or stop while the rest of the field slips past you, vanishing into the distance along with your dreams.

I haven’t completely given up hope. But then I’m struck by what seems to be the decisive blow. The pace bunny for my Boston- qualifying time of three hours and twenty-five minutes zooms past me on my right. Traveling at a prescribed pace, he is the personification of my target; success or failure comes down to whether I finish ahead of or behind him. For twenty-five miles I have stayed a safe distance in front of him, but now he is disappearing down the road ahead. Like time, the pace bunny waits for no one. He has chased me down and left me in his wake.

It’s over, I think to myself. Yet another failed attempt. Once again I’ve trained for months, running six times a week, doing speed work and long runs, eating (mostly) the right foods and managing my weight. Once again I’ve left my family behind to travel to a race that is supposed to have favorable conditions for a fast result. Once again I will return empty-handed. I feel like Homer Simpson thinking he will cross Springfield Gorge on a skateboard – I’m going to make it! – only to fall suddenly short of the target and tumble perilously down the cliff.

It has been a long journey – and I’m not referring to the last twenty-five miles. For as long as I can remember, even before I started running, I’ve wanted to do the Boston Marathon. For six years, it’s been a stated objective. And for the past four marathons, my only focus has been to finish in a time fast enough to qualify for the oldest and most cherished marathon on the planet. For more than two years I’ve trained exclusively for one reason, some five or six hundred runs covering four thousand miles, with only one thing on my mind.

And I’ve come agonizingly close. In my last race, I was twenty- two seconds from the goal, less than one second per mile. My results in training have told me that a Boston-qualifying time is within my grasp. And yet I can’t seem to pull everything together when it counts. Something always goes wrong and I miss the target. The pattern seems to be repeating itself in this, my twentieth marathon.

I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. I stop running and start walking. And I begin to think about what I will tell my wife and all those who believed in me, who told me I could do it: Nope. I came up short again.

PART 1

REJOICE, WE CONQUER

"Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating

rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining

our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over

wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first

cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash,

lightning bolts through the bottom and middle – behold,

the Running Man."

— CHRISTOPHER MCDOUGALL

CHAPTER 1

What makes the Boston Marathon worthy of all this effort? Why are so many people like me determined to run it, particularly when there are countless other races to be conquered, the paths to them much easier and shorter, in some cases as simple as a click of the mouse? There are marathons large and small, quaint and legendary, flat and hilly – enough experiences to challenge, inspire and fulfill a runner for a lifetime, without ever traveling to Hopkinton, passing through Ashland and Framingham, climbing Heartbreak Hill, chasing down the famous Citgo sign and crossing the fabled finish line on Boylston Street.

You could try the fabulous New York City Marathon, for example. No other race in the world gives you the experience of crossing the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, traveling the five boroughs with two million spectators cheering you on, hitting the wall of sound on First Avenue and crossing the finish line in Central Park. I’ve done it three times and I’d go back in a New York minute.

There are plenty of other particularly well-organized events. I’ve finished the Walt Disney World Marathon, which takes you through Epcot, the Magic Kingdom and other Florida theme parks, and the Marine Corps Marathon, a tour of all of Washington’s historic landmarks. Which organization – the U.S. Marines or Disney – has more control freaks who excel at logistics? It’s too close to call.

And I have dozens of other races on my wish list. I’d love to run scenic Big Sur, the regal London Marathon, the flat course in Berlin where world records are routinely set. There are events known for their energy and emotion, like the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in San Diego, and picturesque settings like Honolulu. There are big races in Chicago and Philadelphia. There are well- regarded smaller marathons in Duluth and Pittsburgh.

If an urban race isn’t interesting enough for you, you can run a marathon on the Great Wall of China or the frozen rock of Antarctica. There are even longer events, like the 56-mile Comrades Marathon in South Africa, the oldest ultramarathon in the world, and multi-day races like the Yukon Arctic Ultra.

And yet for me and for millions of other runners, no other event measures up to Boston. Ask someone to name the most prestigious marathon in the world, look at any comparison of the top destination races, and it’s almost unanimous: Boston is at the top of the list.

What’s so special about Boston? For one thing, it’s the oldest marathon on the planet, launched in Victorian times, when McKinley was president, veterans of the U.S. Civil War still numbered in the tens of thousands and Thomas Edison had only recently founded his first electricity-generating station in New York City.

The Boston Marathon traces its roots back to the very earliest days of competitive long-distance running, almost thirty years before any other current marathon was created. It’s unlikely that anyone who ran Boston in 1897 was still alive when the first New York City Marathon was staged seventy-three years later.

In more than a century of Boston Marathons, naturally, there have been dozens of historic moments. Johnny Kelley’s heartbreak in 1936. Kathrine Switzer’s daring entry in 1967. The legendary duel in the sun in 1982. Rick and Dick Hoyt’s first of more than thirty races together in 1977. And, of course, the tragedy of the bombings on Boylston Street in 2013.

But there is more to Boston than just its vintage and its heritage. It is also exclusive. It is the race with a long lineup, not just a starting line but a guarded entrance. The gatekeeper is both fair and ruthless; only those who have earned their place are allowed to enter.

It is not about luck, apart from the benefit of good genes. A well-timed click in the first minute after registration opens will not get you to Hopkinton, nor will a providential entry in a lottery. You can enter through a very limited number of charity spots or travel packages, but the vast majority of participants receive a much-coveted invitation through the front door, making Boston the most elite, undemocratic and prized of all the marathons. By insisting on qualifying times, it is both cruel and inspiring, judgmental and alluring. Unlike any other race, a Boston entry is a validation of more than just a choice, but some combination of genetics and industry.

For a fortunate cohort of runners, Boston’s qualifying times are well within reach. Some people qualify in their very first marathon. I am both deeply envious of and profoundly sympathetic to them. To win the lottery the day after signing your first mortgage is a stroke of good fortune that makes life instantly easier. No one would turn down the freedom. But those lucky souls are denied the value and satisfaction of a lifetime of working hard toward an ambitious goal.

For only the fastest runners is qualifying a routine accomplishment. To the rest, Boston remains a dream, resting tantalizingly on the spectrum somewhere between possible and impossible. Like many things in life that are just out of reach, it becomes an obsession. It’s the oasis on the desert horizon, the chocolate éclair in the shop window.

Few runners think of qualifying in their first marathon. Typically, the only goal in a maiden voyage is to get to the finish line and find out if you have what it takes to cover the distance, regardless of how long it lasts. But after that, at some point early or late in a marathoner’s career, a measurement is taken: how far am I from getting into Boston? How much older and how much faster must I become? What will it take to get there? You might try to put it out of your mind until you are of the right combination of age and speed to have a reasonable shot. But it doesn’t help that you talk to dozens of people who have run Boston and rave about it. Sometimes they are wearing a brightly colored Boston Marathon jacket when they do so.

And the more you hang around other runners, the more you get asked, Have you run Boston? and you have to explain that no, you haven’t qualified yet, not even after six marathons, or a dozen, or more.

For many runners, then, it becomes an itch that must someday be scratched. You must attempt it, as the explorer George Mallory once said of climbing Mount Everest, because it is there. And so it becomes a question of when and how, not if. You cannot be satisfied until you’ve earned your place in Hopkinton and run to that famous finish line in Copley Square.

CHAPTER 2

The marathon is ubiquitous today. There are races all over the world, covered live on television and profiled in human-interest stories. Even non-runners understand what a marathon represents, whether or not they can cite the precise distance. The meaning of the word has expanded to describe not just an organized long-distance footrace, but any extended or arduous task. Marathon talks yielded no resolution to the teachers’ strike. The dance marathon will raise money for the new gym equipment. The expression It’s a marathon, not a sprint is routinely applied to political campaigns, business ventures and other sustained endeavors.

But until 1896, Marathon was merely a town in Greece, the site of a famous battle 24 centuries earlier. In 1870, Marathon achieved brief international infamy as the place from which four English and Italian tourists were kidnapped and eventually murdered.

The profile of Marathon was changed permanently when, as most runners know, the organizers of the first modern Olympics were inspired by the legend of a Greek messenger. A man named Pheidippides, it was commonly believed, ran from Marathon to Athens, announced a glorious victory in battle by shouting Nike!– Greek for victory, not a reference to his trendy footwear – and then dropped dead from exhaustion.

Olympic organizers obviously saw more glory than tragedy in the fate of Pheidippides. They planned a race over the same route on the final day of the Games. Since then, the story of Pheidippides and the first Olympic marathon in his honor has become part of the lore of running. But the truth isn’t so simple.

Did such a Greek messenger really exist? Was his name Pheidippides? Where did he actually run? And did he really expire at the finish line? There’s almost as much debate about the story of Pheidippides as the Kennedy assassination or Babe Ruth’s called shot in the 1932 World Series. And, naturally, there is a lot less evidence to rely upon from the fifth century B.C. There are no closed-circuit tapes to review from that time, no electronic newspaper archives to browse. So how much of the story is true? How much is myth based on some loosely assembled facts? How much of it is pure fiction?

There’s no doubt there was an epic Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. When the smaller Athenian army fought off a Persian invasion about 26 miles from Athens, it was a turning point in European history. The victory strengthened the resolve of the Greeks, who won subsequent battles that protected their culture and set in motion two centuries of Classical Greek civilization. All that Greece gave the world – in politics and philosophy, scientific thought, theatre and literature – was preserved by the triumph on the plains of Marathon.

Naturally, much was written about this pivotal and unlikely victory. Herodotus, who established his place as the father of modern history by meticulously documenting politics and conflict in the Western Asia, Northern Africa and Greece of his time, wrote of Pheidippides in his masterpiece The Histories. Although it is considered the first history text of Western literature, the epic document was both factual and allegorical, and the story of the Athenian messenger was mostly the latter.

According to Herodotus, Pheidippides ran 150 miles without stopping, arriving in Sparta the day after he departed Athens, his mission to secure help from the Spartans in battle. He then ran back to