If you are not from New England, chances are you have no idea that yesterday was Patriots Day. Around here it's a pretty big deal. If you're from Boston, you probably didn't even have to go to work. I know when I was in college there it was always a day off. And what a fun day it is. Not only is it all patriotic, I guess, but it is also the day the Red Sox play an 11:05am game, and more importantly, it is the day of the Boston Marathon. I had no idea what a big deal the Boston Marathon was until I lived there. I hated running, so I certainly didn't pay any attention to it. My college dorm was less than a mile from the finish line, also on Boylston Street overlooking Boston Common. I remember my freshman year looking out my 12th floor window and seeing the finishers walking around in their shiny silver blankets, unsure of exactly how they were still capable of walking after running 26.2 miles.
The following year my sister ran the marathon for charity, so of course I went to watch. My sister is not the fastest of runners, but to me, what she did that day was both incredible and insane. And I couldn't believe how many people went to watch, or how many people actually ran in the race. Of course I've come to appreciate the race a whole lot more for what it is now, so it makes it more interesting to watch.
Yesterday was a fun day. I went to Boston with my parents and my brother to go to the Red Sox game and to check out the marathon. I like going to Red Sox games, but actually never made it there last year, so this was a nice change. I can't really handle night games anymore due to my early bed time, so the game time was perfect. It's also fun to go to games with my parents and my brother, because it always just brings me back to when the four of us used to go to games when I was a kid. My brother went to the same college I did, so we both know Boston very well from living there, and way back in the olden days my parents also went to college in Boston. They've always loved going there, which is one of the reasons they made a point to come to my college basketball games, just as an excuse to go to the city and go to dinner. But ever since they bought their house at the lake they haven't been going there very much, so they were both really excited to be walking around Boston.
The game was great, although it felt so wrong to me to go to Fenway and wind up eating a Luna bar I had in my sweatshirt pocket. Not quite as tasty as popcorn or a roll with chicken, peppers and onions, or peanuts, or ice cream, or.... I could go on. I'd say Fenway Franks, as I used to love them, but I think I'm done with hot dogs for the rest of my lifetime, so although they smelled kind of good still, I didn't have a hard time with avoiding those.
You can definitely tell it's a holiday in Boston. On the walk to the game there were people eating breakfast at a few outdoor restaurants and enjoying their beers... at 9am. After the game you walk less than a quarter-mile to see the marathon running by at the sign for 1 mile to go. There must've been a lot of happy marathoners there. The race used to start later, so after the Sox game you used to be able to catch the elite runners, but now that they start it earlier, by the time we got there the clock said 4:11. But let me tell you, those people still looked like they were running pretty well.
Boston is a race I'd like to do one day. I had some delusions that I was going to somehow get in and run it back in 2003, just after I moved back from Los Angeles. I had actually planned on running the LA marathon, but I moved home 5 weeks before it and didn't go back. So I thought maybe I'd jump into Boston, but if I was going to run it, I wanted a number. And that just didn't seem like it was going to happen. Ever since then I have been training for Ironman races and surprisingly, running a marathon is not such good training for an Ironman, so I still haven't done it. However, when we were on the T and seeing all of the runners making their way down the stairs and cramming into overcrowded subway trains, I must say it wasn't really a big seller for me. Great running weather for it though, pretty overcast and in the high 40's. Strangely, the past couple of years it has been unseasonably warm on race day - like in the 80's, which is definitely not so good for runners.
So that was my fun day. Today it was back to the training, on the trainer for some intervals. I'd have to do the trainer anyway, but it worked out that it was crappy and rainy today. I also made it to yoga again today, which I'm never excited about on the way there, just because by then I'm usually so tired from the swimming, biking and running that came before, but at the end I'm glad I went.
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