How I Had a Huge BM (Boston Marathon) with Minimal Effort

One of the benefits of being both injured and unemployed is that when your buddy is traveling to a big name race, you can join him without the worry of training or work getting in the way. That’s how I found myself back in Boston, a place I’ve traveled for work many times in the past. I’m just here to be Ramiro’s athletic supporter. My job is to make sure everything is in place, no loose ends. So many things to manage, and in a foreign city, he needed help juggling all those balls in the air. I figured I could juggle a few of his balls and make sure he had a good BM.

The Old North Church, where lanterns announced the arrival of fall fashion in 1776, the red coats

Anyway, the race itself starts on a Monday. We made plans to arrive on separate overnight flights on Saturday morning. That gave us enough time to recover from the trip. I spent most of Saturday pre-BM wandering around the historical North End. Got some good Italian pastries and passed Paul Revere’s house that he wisely bought long before housing prices in Boston skyrocketed. 

Sunday morning is without a doubt the best day. Just you and 30,000 of your actual and imaginary best friends out for a shakeout run around the city, up and down the Charles River and across the bridges. Wanna make some new friends? Just join a group of 300 runners passing by. Take your pick. I’m sure you’ll find a few hundred friendly faces you want to have a BM with. Everyone is so full of optimism that they will have a good BM, it’s cute. Come Monday, we’ll see how everyone’s BM got messed up.

We spent the bulk of Sunday afternoon getting the race packet and paying our sacrifice to the BAA apparel gods. With 30,000 runners, the lines into packet pickup were worse than a Soviet bread line, reminiscent of when an iPhone came out back when people cared about such things. Plan for an afternoon. Trying to find the right size BAA apparel was itself a marathon Black Friday experience. Who needs 26.2 miles? Heck, you know you can just buy the coveted jacket and not even finish the marathon, or even start? Hot and sweaty BM is completely superfluous. 

Race day. Boston is one of the least car friendly cities in America. Hardly an oversized parking lot used only 3 days a year to be found. The city planned for mass transit to hold a huge BM. The runners were carted off in a parade of school buses early in the morning. In a pat-myself-on-the-back moment, I wasn’t running. I had a leisurely breakfast, a private and pleasurable if forgettable bm, and a shower. With an 11AM start time for Ramiro, I took my time, not needing to be at the 10k mark until nearly noon. I hopped on a train and met some interesting characters among our fellow athletic supporters, including the parents of one of the world’s most famous/richest/recognizable people whose sibling was running. 

No one in particular

At 10 km, trying to spot your runner among the crowd was impossible. It would be easier to find a dalmatian in a herd of running zebras. Did not help that 3 of the runners I was looking for were petite blonde women in their 40s, the one aforementioned demi-famous sibling who I had no idea what she looked like except for a tutu and a bib number, two dark skinned men of modest stature, and Bree. Even the BM app didn’t help. With 88,000 fans in town, mobile data was unreliable. I only managed to spot Hugo. I got back on the train, and thought, wow, this is going to be a tough BM to follow.

Bree!

Ramiro!

Hugo!

The next train stop is at the 21km mark, Wellesley College. With the slow train service, I barely got there in time but did get to see and cheer on Bree and Ramiro. I also spotted our demi-famous sibling and Hugo again. The next stop is at 30km, Heartbreak Hill. But the train stop is a mile from the marathon course, we’d have to hurry and I’d have to run to BM in time. But alas, that was not to be. I nearly gave up on the train and attempted to Uber over, but mobile data signal was uncooperative. By the time the train got to the Newton station, Ramiro and everyone else was already done with that part of their BMs. 

At Landsdowne, unknown runners having a tough BM

I stayed on the train to Landsdowne, the 25 mile mark, thinking that getting to the finish line would be difficult, a fact that I’d soon forget. Now, because I’d skipped a planned stop, I was well ahead of most of my runners. I didn’t really have time to grab lunch, but I did have time to have a beer. Then I waited and waited at the top of the bridge but spotted absolutely none of my runners. Now I’d have to trek a mile plus to the post-finish line area to congratulate Ramiro well after he finished his BM. That turned out to be impossible because I’d recently forgotten to factor in how constipated the sidewalks on Boylston St. would be. I spent 45 minutes stuck in a crowd between blocks. 

Ramiro and the finisher's blanket

Paul Revere's house, look it up on Zillow

In the middle of the North End post-BM

Miraculously, after aborting the post-race meetup, I found Ramiro on the streets leading back to the hotel. To be fair, he was limping after a hard, unexpectedly warm BM so he was easy to find. We washed up and headed back out to celebrate. Seeing that we were both wearing bright red boxer tights, I joked that if we got into a street fight and they discovered we had matching underwear on, we could be in a world of hurt (no gay, well maybe some gay). We had a beer at America’s oldest Tavern, not Cheers, which we did on Saturday, but at the Bell in Hand Tavern. That place has been running since 1795, so it’s possible that Washington and Hamilton got trashed here (also no gay, but maybe some gay, who knows).

Tuesday, post-BM, we felt like a weight was lifted off our shoulders. I would like to say my trip home was uneventful, but I was feeling quite nauseous between New York and Dallas and had my own epic bm at the latter. Looking back, I’m not sure I’ll do this again. Sharing BM with so many people, it’s just not my scene. Difficulty in spectating was a stinker. But I am glad I did it at least once. May you all have an epic and memorable BM in your life.