As the pack crosses through mile seven into mile eight, I can’t help but think to myself, This is where Meb won.
I remember that race pretty vividly -- partly because I was late to class because of it. It’s hard to be a spectator when the race starts at 10 am on a Monday, but that day everyone had to watch. The bombings at the finish line the year before had brought a level of attention to distance running that the sport doesn’t usually get. Boston is normally the one marathon that non-running fans know about, but after the infamy of 2013 the race became cemented as an institution -- as if it wasn’t before then, with its century-plus history and all that.
What I mean is, in 2014, people who had never even thought about distance running outside of their scarring experience in gym class actually cared about a foot race. I’m probably going to hell for even thinking this, but that’s all because of the bombings.
And then, with everyone’s eyes on Boylston Street, Meb delivered the first American victory in 30 years. Not only that, but he did it with the three victims’ names hand written on his bib number. Talk about calling your shot.
There were actually two gutsy American performances that day. In the women’s race, Shalane Flanagan went for it from the gun. She charged down the descent out of Hopkinton, determined to win. She didn’t, though; she was done in by a doper.
Meb, however, waited eight miles before breaking away. But here’s the thing: no one breaks away in the first half a marathon. Or, at least, no one does that and hangs on.
And it’s not like Meb had youthful enthusiasm on his side, either. He was 38, almost 39, at the time! People don’t PR when they’re that old. I’ve watched a lot of races, and his was far and away the gutsiest I’ve seen. He broke away stupid early and then ran faster than PR pace essentially solo for 18 miles. And then, when it looked like he had been finally caught dead-to-rights, his lead dwindling below 10 seconds, he rallied and extended it!
I was between classes that day: I had an 9:30 that ended at 10:20, and then I didn’t have another one until 12:30. A couple of teammates all met in the Common and set up a laptop to stream the race. Passersby sometimes stopped and watched for a bit, then moved on, but the distance runners all stayed. We kind of talked a little bit, but mostly we just watched. Marathon Monday is a bit like March Madness for distance runners.
The end though -- holy shit the end! We were yelling at the computer and jumping around like a bunch of maniacs. Watching a marathon is a slow burn, and usually it fizzles out as the person you’re cheering for fades. The winner is almost never who you want it to be.
But this time it was, and it was one of the most exciting moments in my sports viewership. We witnessed history that day, and then ran our best workout of the season later that afternoon. How could you not?
Just when I feel like I am maybe starting to settle in to the race, two of the Ethiopian runners move to the front and open up a gap. But Meb’s victory was so famous that no one’s ever going to let a competitor run away in the first half again.
It takes 30 seconds for the pack to respond, and immediately what had been an amorphous blob four or five athletes wide turns into a single-file line. These surges have a bit of a yo-yo effect, where the back of the line feels the pace change more than the front. And guess who’s left in the back?
We fly through the eighth mile in 4:58, our fastest since the first 5k.
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