Beginners and Beyond

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No bandits at Boston this year (Read 120 times)


#artbydmcbride

     

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    LRB


      The sound of water running must be nearby. lol


      No more marathons

         

        You would think but here's a story for you. I don't recall which Boston it was [pretty sure it was 1994] but there I am in the corral taking everything in when the women next to me drops to a knee. I look down and she's peeing right there in the middle of 1000 runners! I'd never seen anyone do that [before or since]. What struck me was that no one [other than me] was thinking anything of it. I just moved out of the way of the stream and waited for the gun to sound. That kind of cemented the fact this was some serious shit.

         

        Thankfully, not that.

        Boston 2014 - a 33 year journey

        Lordy,  I hope there are tapes. 

        He's a leaker!


          I'm running it this year. The only concern we burb folks have is the bag drop off only in Boston Monday. A lot of us go right to the start via cars as opposed to the Boston bus option.

           

          Hopefully it will be warm enough that the thermal Jawa costumes won't be needed.

          MothAudio


            Never seen as many runners on the sides of the road out of Hopkinton. I guess the wait in the corrals too much. Back then I just ducked around a bush but now that practice is heavily monitored by police. Can't say I blame the town's people being upset with their little village being trashed by runners.

             Youth Has No Age. ~ Picasso / 1st road race: Charleston Distance Run 15 Miler - 1974 / profile

             

            RSX


              Back in 1995 the issue of bandits was a hot button topic due to the anticipated number of athletes for the 100th running in '96. At that time the race director, Dave McGillivray, was very open about the issue of bandits in a number of press releases. His position was that bandits had become a part of the Boston Marathon tradition, their numbers were anticipated and taken into account when estimating suppport for the race. He said that as long as they started behind all of the assigned corals * he didn't anticipate problems.

               

              The reason it became a hot topic was the large increase of runners for the centennial race. When I ran Boston for the 1st time in '94 there were 6-7,000 finishers. Two years later for the 100th there were 40,000+! At that time there were questions and concerns the race / course could handle those numbers, so the issue of adding to that with unofficial bandits became a legit issue. Anyone familiar with Hopkinton [race start] will understand. I was there for the 100th and surprisingly it ran as smoothly as it had two years earleir. I was in the 13th corral and it took us 4 minutes to cross the start line.

               

               

              * Corrals are closely monitored by marshalls that check not only you have an official bib number but that you're entering your assigned corral [each corral has 1000 runners].

              The only year before this one that I even heard bandits talked about in the media was 96 for the 100th. There were many public pleas made for us to please don't do it. 1 thing that helped eliminate that is that the BAA created a large lottery for non-BQ runners just that year. There were still bandits that year, but a noticeable difference.

               

              1 cool thing is that you never hear of the BAA running out of water for the race as you may hear with other races. They can only guess how many non-invited guests may stop by.

              RSX


                Just a coincidence that 1 of those guys looks like me. That is in the first 1/2 mile I believe. I was nervous my first start until I saw all these runners heading in the woods shortly after the start,

                 


                #artbydmcbride

                  Just a coincidence that 1 of those guys looks like me. ....

                   

                   

                  riiiight....coincidence 

                   

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