I Can't Wait To Tell You About Boston

I just want to cut right to the chase and tell you a little bit about the Boston Marathon.

It falls in a group with five other marathons that are world-renowned and prestigious in any crowd. The difference between the other four and Boston is that Boston is the best, biggest, and most well-known.

I can't remember why I know Boston is such a big deal. Do you remember why? No. We just both know that it's a big deal.

It is run on the first Monday in April ever year. That Monday is known as Patriot's Day.

It starts in Hopkinton, a little no-know town in the middle of Massachusetts. It runs through several similar little towns with quaint East coast houses and small side streets and Grandmas watering their petunias out in the front flower bed. Grandpa is in the back doing the same. May through March these little dots on the globe are nothing more and don't have much to offer, but by the time that first Monday in April has come and gone, those dots are magnified by streets paved with squashed gatorade cups and girls from Welleselly College still wishing they'd gotten their kiss from runner's at the halfway point. Those little points on a map have become ginormous landmarks for runners across the world, the most important cottages they ever ran by, the most sentimental side streets they every struggled on. Hopkinton is a hop into the start of memory lane, and from Ashton to Copley Square, all little marks on the course, these runners turn insignificant second thoughts to essential experiences.

Kind of like running. In general.

It finishes in Boston. If the runners weren't so delirious or overcrowded by the mass of spectators on either side of the narrow street, they could appreciate the sky scraping John Hancock tower on the horizon. I guess that's why they all go and pay homage to the finish the day before, when they can still stand without staggering and can pass by it without passing out.

That's it really. Or at least for now. Boston is a big deal and though the hardcore souls who run it can take 26 miles of it in one shot, an innocent bystanding blog reader can only take so much at one time.