It Had To Be Boston

This Monday, April 17th, marks an important anniversary in my life.

Five years and one day earlier, on April 16, 2001, I joined the ranks of the temporarily insane by running my first - and to this point, last - marathon.

It happened to be Boston. It had to be Boston.

On Monday, the Boston Athletic Association will host the 110th running of the great race, coinciding, as it always does, with Patriots' Day in Massachusetts. The Red Sox will play a home game at Fenway at 11am, so that fans may file out to Brookline Avenue in time to see the race leaders cross the Mass Pike, in the shadow of the Citgo sign.

By the time they get to the Fens, runners will have passed through nine municipalities: Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, Brighton, Brookline, Boston. Soon after passing Fenway, they'll make that final turn onto Boylston Street, seeing the concrete canyon of the Prudential Center and the Boston Public Library before them. Many of those runners - the ones who struggle home in four hours plus - will shed a tear at the sheer weight of their accomplishment, perhaps in memory of a loved one for whom they run. A wall of noise from those blessed spectators who stayed will lift tired legs to the finish line, where an army of volunteers will welcome the runners with silvery blankets and pats on the back.

I know all of this, because I did it.

I ran cross-country in high school as a clever means of getting in shape for baseball season. In college, I ran for fun, taking advantage of the rolling hills of upstate New York as an alternative to working out in a dingy gym. But I was never a serious "runner." At least, not until Boston.

My in-laws used to live in Newton, and my wife and I visited them as often as we could while we were living in Connecticut. It was an easy 90-minute drive, and we loved all that Boston had to offer. It was during one of these visits, when my mother-in-law completed her third or fifth Boston Marathon (I've honestly lost count), that I became obsessed with a vision of completing a marathon myself.

But not just any marathon. It had to be Boston.

No race carries as much history. No marathon personifies its location like Boston. Put simply, if you're going to run 26.2 miles, the locale had better be perfect. And Boston is perfect for the marathon. I wish I could better describe it - and Lord knows, there are dozens of books on the subject - but the Boston Marathon is a full-day happening. It's a love-in. A 26-mile street party. There's nothing quite like it.

I hatched my plan sometime in 1999, I think. The details are fuzzy with time, but I know for a fact that I botched my first efforts at training for a marathon via Achilles tendinitis and shin splints, the latter of which landed me in once-a-week rehab sessions at UConn Medical. By the time I found enough duct tape and bailing wire to hold myself together, it was spring of 2001. So that was the Boston Marathon I would run.

Having failed to complete a qualifying marathon in time for Boston '01 - this being one of the few marathons in the world that requires a qualifying time for entry - I had two choices. I could honor a Boston tradition and run as a "bandit," without an official number, but I was a stubborn lad. I wanted an official entry. So I chose Option Two, which was to call the B.A.A. directly and beg.

It worked. Their PR office granted me a "media entry," which gave me an official bib and an all-important seat on the busses that carry runners to the starting line in Hopkinton. Amazing what "ESPN" on your business card would get you back in 2001.

Race day was idyllic. High 40's, little wind, slightly overcast. Utterly perfect marathon conditions. Hopkinton, the town that bills itself as the place "where it all begins," looked like Woodstock, if Woodstock were sponsored by Adidas and Power-Gel. Runners of all shapes and sizes (and chances of actually finishing). The local high school serves as a staging area. Everywhere you look, down every side street and alley, you see people in singlets and expensive shoes, nervously pacing as they await the start. With nearly 20,000 official (and unofficial) runners hoping to complete the race, that can be a long wait - from my corral, in the far reaches of Hopkinton, the time between the gun and my actually reaching the start line was a full twelve minutes. Think about that - 12 minutes from the time you hear the shot until the time you see the starting line.

The first ten kilometers of a marathon are a joy ride. Bouyed by the fans out here in the country, excited at the realization that you're actually "doing it," and terrified of slowing down for fear of getting trampled by the 10,000 idiots behind you, you simply surf the wave. In fact, my memories of the first half of the 2001 Boston Marathon are nothing more than blurred glimpses of humanity: runners pulling off the course to relieve themselves. A little girl in Framingham holding out orange slices for the runners while complaining that "my ahm huhts" (think Boston accent). Passing a water station in Natick, one that was set up expressly for the race leaders (they all lay out their own drinks of choice in advance), and seeing that it was completely torn down by the time I reached it. Nothing specific, everything exhilirating. Then, I hit the 13-mile mark, and Wellesley.

The "scream tunnel" is a gauntlet of Wellesley College students who make it their mission each year to blow out as many eardrums as possible. You can hear them a mile away - literally. While I was appreciative of the support, I was more concerned with my shoes, which seemed to be falling off my feet. Stopping to re-tie them, I pressed on, only to realize within two minutes that I had laced them tight enough to stop circulation. Another stop. I should point out that by the time I reached the halfway mark at Wellesley, the race leaders were about fifteen minutes away from the finish line, four cities away. The American marathon record appeared safe.

A couple of miles after Wellesley, the marathon course makes a hard right at a fire station on Commonwealth Avenue, and runners enter the infamous Hills of Newton. Heartbreak Hill, the subject of much Boston Marathon lore, is actually the third incline in a series of four. Coming as it does between miles 17 and 21, when the body is taking serious issue with the mind, Heartbreak is a journey into hell. The only solace for a recreational runner is the knowledge that once you reach the top of Newton, it is all literally downhill from there.

Boston College sits around Mile Marker 21. The undergrads, fully lubricated by the time I got there, had formulated a neat trick: they placed sentries in the trees with a copy of the Boston Globe's official entry list. These spies would single out runners based on their bib numbers, reading off their names and hometowns to the rowdies on the ground, who would then give the runner a personalized cheer. Imagine the startled looks on the faces of beaten-down marathoners when a group of five or six boisterous BC students began chanting their name.

My wife was waiting for me near BC - or maybe Kenmore Square. It's hard to remember. I do recall that she stepped out onto the course to walk with me for a minute, which would have been a lovely moment were it not for the jerk behind me who made a nasty comment about her being in the way. I swear, I would have dropped that guy right then and there, had I retained any motor skills. Which I didn't.

A couple of painful miles later, I reached Fenway Park and began the trek up Brookline towards the Citgo sign, heading for the bridge that would carry me over the Mass Pike and into downtown Boston. My legs were made of cement; the sweat had dried on my skin into a thin layer of salt. I had nothing. Completely gassed.

As I crested the bridge over the highway, I happened to glance to my right, and made eye contact with a typical Boston Marathon spectator: mid-20's, shorts, sandals, beer in his hand, sunglasses on. The guy raised his drink to me, then squinted as if in recognition.

He nudged his girlfriend standing next to him, and I heard him say, "Hey! That's Whit Watson! He's on ESPN!"

I raised my hand in salutation and attempted to say something, but the sound that escaped my mouth was something like "uuuhhhnnn."

A marathon may be 26.2 miles, but for a runner like me, the halfway point is 20 miles, not 13.1. At 20 miles, I reached the cusp of my training. I had three "long runs" under my belt, but it was obvious by mile twenty that four months of running five days a week had not been enough. The last six miles of that race were worse than the first 20. I cannot accurately describe it without sticking hot needles into my shins to refresh my memory.

It was with great relief that I slogged through the final turn and hit Boylston Street, which was still rocking, even by the time I got there. They stood four-deep, bellowing their encouragement. Random people - strangers - hooted and hollered and refused to let me quit. If you've come this far, with the finish line now visible, and you encounter such an organic outpouring of support, you better keep running.

There's the Pru. There's the library. Oh my God, I'm going to do it.

Three steps, two steps...finish.

Just to be sure this wasn't some nightmare, I looked it up this weekend in the "Archived Results" section of the Boston Marathon website:

Bib #14777
Watson, Whit J.
11,176th overall out of 13,408 runners (they never count the bandits)
Official Time: 4:31:51
Net Time: 4:19:10

I lifted my arms into the air and howled. Joy, pain, relief, whatever. Just get these damn shoes off my feet. It's worth mentioning that the first guy ever to run a marathon died at the end. His name was Philippides, and to my knowledge, he did not have the benefit of Power-Gel. I'm also fairly certain that his results were not shown in a full-screen graphic that night on "SportsCenter," as mine were. Turns out, my friends in Bristol were following me all the way - online. So THAT'S what that little chip in my shoelaces was for.

Very rarely in our modern lives do we ever get the chance to truly push ourselves. Showing up for an 8am meeting at work after doing jello shots all night doesn't count. I'm talking about taking the human body to its outer limits, reaching a tipping point beyond which you have never stepped - and for that matter, you never knew it existed. On that day, five years ago, I reached that point. With help from a little girl holding oranges, some BC undergrads who started drinking at 9 in the morning, a few thousand bellowing spectators on Boylston Street, my wife, my in-laws, my well-worn Asics, and 20,000 other crazies with numbers pinned to their chests, I jogged across the line. It was a slow jog, but I got there, dammit.

I'll be watching the 2006 race on Monday, looking for landmarks on the course. If I look hard enough, I might see a little piece of my soul out there. Someday, if I'm crazy enough, I might just do it again.