Boston Marathon by Gonzalo

Boston Marathon - April 15th 2019

Race Reporter: Gonzalo First at all, I want to say thank you to our coaches for their work. Valentino for Tuesday in the track, Sylvain Dodet for the Brick on Saturdays and all the Expatriés runners. Thank you everybody for the amazing job! My trip I travelled to Boston on Thursday morning thinking it would be enough time to recover from the jet lag before the race. I believe Boston is the only race that is on a Monday and for sure, it is one of the oldest marathons in the world. This was the 123rd edition of the Boston Marathon and it also happened to be on the same day as Patriots day celebration. The main difference with other races is that there is no lottery system to register. All the runners need to qualify by time in their age group and wait to be accepted. The course is one line; Hopkinton to Boston (no laps). The Expo It is not any bigger than any other marathon Expo. The most popular area is where you can buy all the race merchandise, specially the famous and well-known Boston marathon jacket. It has very good organization and very good work from volunteers who give solutions to all type of questions; like where you can park your car on the morning of the race. The Race day  The logistics to go to the race start is a bit more complicated compared to other marathons. In my case, I was at 6:15 am at the Boston Common Park to leave my bag and it was a one-hour trip in the organization shuttle to Hopkington. The weather was not perfect because it was raining a lot that morning and we were waiting in the athlete village for 2 hours before the race started. Race started 10:04 am. In the athlete village, the organization provided us with coffee, hot chocolate, bagels, bananas and Gatorade products. There was a big tent where all the runners could hide away from the rain. There were 115 different nationalities and I was able to speak and interact with some other runners. It was a very emotional start with the American anthem “Star-Spangled-Banner”, in memory of all the victims who suffered the bomb attack in 2015.  At the same time, two F18 military aircrafts passed over our heads and ended with a huge applause and ovation from all the runners and spectators present. When we started to run, I could feel the fast pace of the entire race and the nice organization in the water points. The atmosphere and the support of the crowd was amazing. The rain stopped before the race started, and I was able to enjoy the course and feel in my legs the hard hills (toboggan) of the second part of the marathon. Both the race and the organization exceeded my expectations. Nice ending with an excited crowd that did not stop cheering throughout the race. Thanks all the Expatriés for their support!