Marathon Monday

Posted April 15, 2013 by Sarah Barton

Forgive me for writing about sports for a second consecutive week, but the Boston Marathon is kind of a big deal. The Boston Athletic Association claims that in terms of media coverage, the Boston Marathon ranks behind only the Super Bowl as the largest single day sporting event in the world. Yowzer. As I wrote at this time last year, I love watching the marathon, and it is another unique Boston experience.

Simmons is about a mile from Mile 25 of the marathon, where Beacon Street and Commonwealth Ave will be absolutely packed with people cheering for runners as they gut out the last few miles through Brookline and Boston. Today is Patriots’ Day, which is only a holiday in Massachusetts and Maine (although for some reason in Maine they move the apostrophe and call it Patriot’s Day), so many people either have or take the day off to witness thousands of people running. Watching people run sounds fairly boring, but the emotion and camaraderie are palpable. You have to be there. This is not an event that is “as seen on TV.”

Last year I made an effort to make the marathon relevant to GSLIS. This year, I am unabashedly promoting it as another perk of Boston. Even if you’re not at GSLIS, and even if you’re not in the Boston area, it is something that you should do your best to see in person. Oh, and the Red Sox play an 11 o’clock home game every year on Patriots’ Day, if you feel like capitalizing on this and my last post in a single day.