The Big Day

Beginning before 7:00 a.m., the buses began rolling out from Boston and Cambridge, carrying tens of thousands of runners to Hopkinton. After all the nervous excitement of the last few days, these final hours are a surrealistic mix of practical concerns (how many layers to wear, how much vaseline to apply, how to time the needed trips to the toilet) and fervent hopes for a good race and not too much suffering before its over.

For those watching on TV, it's spectacle and entertainment. We thrill at the thought that Ryan Hall will be in the front pack with the Kenyans and Ethiopians. We root for Kara Goucher to prove her famous coach right and emerge as one of the best marathoners in the world. We will rush out to the course to watch our friends, family, and colleagues run by.

For the runners, it's logistics, it's keeping calm after all the anxious waiting of the last week, it's finally being able to not check the weather forecast every couple of hours. This is it; all the elements are in place. Now, just take care of the last few details and don't let the overwhelming relief of being released to run seduce you into a fast early pace.

For local runners, the decision to enter and train for the Boston Marathon was made many months ago, maybe a year ago. If my own circle of running buddies is representative, the training began in earnest in January with long runs on bitterly cold Sunday mornings. In spite of the stinging cold, the many layers of clothing, looking back I know those runs were easy, relaxed, with the race itself far off in the distance and incapable of inspiring dread. But in the last few weeks, with most of the training done, the worries have multiplied. Would the weather turn ugly hot or ugly cold? Would that nagging soreness turn into something really serious? And the thought that afflicts almost every runner when the time for preparation is over, did I do enough to prepare?

Running the marathon -- training for the marathon -- is such a fundamental act of personal commitment that we rightly celebrate all the entrants, and laud all the finishers. Even though the race is full of excesses (All that GU! All those souvenirs!), at its core it's pretty simple: you get on the bus and ride for an hour, are dropped off in the wilderness (sorry Hopkinton), and you get to run back home. We'll help you all we can with cheers and prayers. When you're done, you'll be a different person. And that goes for all of you, too, Ryan and Kara and Robert and Deriba and Dire and Bezunesh, and Lidiya...

Good luck. Godspeed. Courage.