26.2 to Copley Sq.

As I do every year, I took the day off from work to watch the Boston Marathon yesterday. Part of it is practicality. I live a few blocks from the course and road closures make it nearly impossible for me to get anywhere. The other part is that it's like have the Super Bowl in your front yard. And it's a sport that I play!

Our friend D. from Slovenia joined us yesterday. She runs too. All three of us will be running in the James Joyce Ramble this Sunday. Nothing gets you motivated to run like watching a world class marathon.

We saw another thrilling women's race. Last year, Catherine Ndereba and Elfenesh Alemu were neck in neck for 25 miles until Ndereba pulled away. This time, Alemu led for the first 20 miles, sometimes by as much as 1:20. Until. Ndereba caught her in the Newton hills around mile 20. They ran together for about 10 minutes. I'm sure Alemu was having visions of deja vu at this point. All of a sudden, Ndereba found another gear and pulled away in shocking fashion. Watching on the big screen at Copley, none of us could believe the gap she opened up.

We stuck around the finish line a little longer until around the 2:30 mark and then went further up the course to cheer on the non-elites like us who live for this race. Lots of people wear their name on the shirts so you'll cheer for them and call out their name. Who am I to deny them?

The most common names were Amy, Liz, Dave and Jeff. (Dave, Jeff, I fully expect you to run a marathon now.) My favorites were the Koreans who ran with backpacks and Korean flags. Everytime I yelled "Go Korea" they'd look over and smile. Jen thinks that they think I'm Korean. Probably so.