Yesterday was the Boston Marathon! It's the busiest time of the year by far around here, for better or for worse. I'm usually the only one of my friends who cares and most years I end up walking around Boylston street the day before to see the finish line and maybe the expo, but nothing more since no one ever wants to go cheer with me :( .
This year was different! My sister was visiting and she had a friend running in the race. We were on 'bottle duty', meaning we had to find a way to get to a spot wayyyyy earlier in the course than is normally easy to do and hand off a small water bottle filled with a carb mix. This ended up being perfect since my sister is also a cyclist, so we turned the whole thing into a fun bike ride. We got to see both the men's and women's elite fields go by, with both of the eventual winners, John Korir (who set a course record!) and Sharon Lodeki, along with a huge chunk of the men's sub-elite field before finally seeing and successfully handing off the water bottle.
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| Elite Men's group through mile 16, including John Korir! |
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| Elite Womens group through mile 16, I dont think this pic has Sharon Lodeki in it :/ |
With a successful bottle handoff behind us, we hopped back on our bikes and raced down Beacon street to some side streets that connect with Commonwealth Avenue to cheer for my sister's friend a handful more times. Boston's marathon route is basically a straight line from Hopkinton to Boston so seeing someone multiple times in the race is tough to do, as transit options are extremely limited outside of the metro area (even in Boston the runners are faster than the green line lol) and the race takes place on the two major roads in the city, comm ave and beacon st.
After making it to Cleveland Circle to cheer one last time, we realized we were kinda stuck on the Newton side of comm ave until the crows thinned a little. It was pretty chilly, we spent the entire day cycling between being warm on the bikes and getting too cold standing and cheering, so we killed some time by biking back into Newton to hang out at a cafe for an hour or two before coming back and finding the official pedestrian crossing around Tappan St. Between side streets, cafe runs, and sightseeing we ended up with ~30 miles of biking on the day.
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We made it across!! |
After that we made the mistake of trying to take the green line back into downtown. The train was more packed than even the worst I've seen after a sox game, and the MBTA did the thing where they cancelled the train right at Kenmore with no warning, dumping a packed train onto an already overflowing platform. After that we decided to walk the rest of the way to the restaurant.
My promise to you, beloved reader, is that I will never run a marathon (I have a chronic injury and can't run anymore), but spectating is always a fun time. Everyone has fun signs, (most) people are friendly, its a state holiday, and this year it was literally 4/20. I had a great day even if I'm dead tired today. I'll leave you with this cool pic my sister took of me and my bike (have I mentioned I built my bike enough?).
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| me and the bike I built |
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