Happy Patriots Day! Which means it’s Marathon Monday!!
I enjoyed watching the 117th running of the Boston Marathon today. What better way to get pumped up for the Blue Ridge Half Marathon this weekend!? Luckily we get the Universal Sports channel, so I got to watch it on TV. I love that they had a preview show, a pre-race show, and a post-race show in addition to the live coverage of the race itself. Truly the Super Bowl of running, ladies and gentlemen.
I read a great article about the Boston Marathon yesterday, where ESPN referred to it as the ‘Mecca of Marathoning’. Towards the end of the article, the author shared a compilation of statements about Boston from radio interviews over the years.
Although I’ve yet to run a full marathon (stay tuned… it’s happening later this year!!!), I get really excited about the Boston Marathon each year! This year was especially exciting rooting for Kara Goucher and Shalane Flanagan, as they fought to become the first American champion since Lisa Larsen Weidenbach in 1985. Unfortunately Flanagan finished fourth and Goucher finished sixth. But I think that’ still pretty awesome to have two Americans finish in the top six! On the men’s side Jason Hartmann finished 4th behind two men from Ethiopia and one man from Kenya.
Did anyone see Shalane’s finish line interview? She said being able to “brag” that she has competed in the Boston Marathon “legitimizes” her as a runner. This coming from the girl who is a three-time Olympian, won the bronze medal in the 2008 Bejing Olympics in the 10,000 meters, and holds the American record in that same event. That just goes to show you what a crown jewel Boston is, even to elite runners.
I dream of running Boston, which has been called the “people’s Olympics”. Right now it feels as far fetched as attempting to qualify for the actual Olympics. But I feel confident that once I tackle my first marathon later this year, I may be ready to start focusing more on speed and not just on conquering the distance.
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| Photo courtesy of my wonderful sister-in-law, who was nice enough to take this picture for me while she was in Boston earlier this year. |
Someday I will cross this line, and it will be on my list of greatest achievements.
Did you get to watch the race today?
Have you ever run Boston? Do you dream of it like I do?
How many full marathons have you run? Which ones?
Turkey Runner 
Just found your blog through Becky (Running on Happy)…love finding other runners down here! I’ll be running the Blue Ridge Half this weekend too! Good luck!
Awesome! Good luck at the race. I clicked over to your blog (loving reading your old race reports!) and you look really familiar. I think we’ve run into each other before at the Blacksburg Classic. I was with Nicki (Running Nicki) at the race in 2012 and I think you’re the girl who introduced yourself to her before the race.
I unfortunately didn’t get to watch any of the race until the news started blowing up about the explosions. Such a horrible thing to happen at such a wonderful event. I didn’t know you were already planning on running a marathon this year!! Yayyy!!! Also, I can’t wait to hear about how Blue Ridge goes!!
It’s a terrible thing that happened on a day that should be about celebration and triumph. I haven’t “officially” announced it on the blog, since the race isn’t until November. But I figured I’d meniton it.
This is such a nice post about our “Super Bowl.” What a shame that the news now has the bombings to cover, and not who won or where the American’s finished. I love the picture that your sister-in-law took for you of the finish line.
Thank you. I actually debated taking this post down after news spread of the bombings. I wasn’t sure if it was inappropriate to have this post up. But then I thought “No, taking it down in light of what happened only lets the bad guys win”.