I’ve got a deeply personal relationship with the Boston Marathon. Ran it just the one time, the 100th annual in 1996. It was for me, at the time, as should be for you today, The Mountaintop. The Pilgrimage. The Privilege.
Does Boston mean something a little different to me and my generation of runners? Yes. To start with runners of my era had to run <2:50 to get in. Period. Unless you wanted to run in the bandit corral, which was always embraced. I hit that mark many times but refused to run Boston until I felt I could give it the Race it deserves. My Very Best Effort. And I did. And don’t see much reason to ever go back and give less.
Which largely dictates how I see the event now. Open to the masses either via soft qualifying standards or through fundraising. That Golden Badge that only a very few were entitled to wear now merely a bucket list item. I don’t care for this new “sense of accomplishment” at all.
Unless of course you line up in Hopkinton with the sole purpose of making this the best marathon of your entire running career. Unless you have Proven your Fitness and Worthiness to stand where Legends have stood.
If you’re there “just for the experience” or for any other reason than making this the most important running day of your life, then it is you this column speaks to. I don’t like what you’ve done to the race but you will never, ever, change what it means to me. I can only hope you approach it with the same reverence and respect that the athletes of my generation insisted on. And give it your very best. And be satisfied with what you gave and took from the Boston Marathon. Twenty years from now.
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