Burritos, Beer, and Boston (and breaking a sweat)

Boston, the greatest and most renowned marathon in all the world, was run yesterday morning. It is tradition for it to be run on Patriot's day each year so it is always run on Monday. Nikki and I, who love to watch any televised race coverage together, had to work but were determined to see it happen. So we shut off our twitter and instagram feeds for the day and planned to watch the race coverage online.

We knew that it was expected to be 90 degrees in Boston so, to get a taste of what the runners would be going through, we decided we had to break a sweat in our own 80 degree city. Because running 4.46 miles is just as hard as 26.2, duh. Like on my hot run in Raleigh, I felt tired and I let Nikki do most of the talking. But we still finished at an average pace of 8:42 and we pushed it for the last little stretch.

Then we picked up beers and burritos and set up the laptop for our race-viewing party. This is far more exciting than the super bowl people!

It was difficult because we wanted to google a million things about the course, the weather conditions in Ethiopia, marathon qualifying times but we were sure any search would give away the results of the race. So we made fun of the commentators and I made the following observations:

1. The Boston course did not look all that pretty. I fell far more in love with New York watching its race coverage last fall than I did with Boston last night.
2. Mutai should have claimed the world marathon record last year, in my opinion. I'm still not sure how it's fair that his time doesn't count.
3. The Boston expo is the coolest in the world and when Nikki runs it (SOON), she is going to outfit her whole wardrobe with gear so she'll never have to go on a run where someone doesn't pass her and know how cool she is for running Boston. If I ever run it (not even if sure if it's in my plans), then I will do the same.
4. Crowd support is kinda lame for the whole part of the race that is not actually in the city of Boston (2/3 of it). At least, that's how it seemed from watching the race.
5. The race runs through Wellesley, where Ingrid's school (Babson, not Wellesley) was and it was exciting to see that familiar territory.
6. Based on everything I've read, this race has far more energy and excitement than I could see on the coverage last night. I think I need to go there to experience it.  I am going to be there to cheer Nikki on when she runs the great race.

You want to know who the winners are, if you don't already? Kenyans across the board.

Watching these races is always great motivation but it is also humbling. I can't even begin to understand how a human being can run 26.2 miles in 2:31:50, let alone 2:12:40. Sometimes it's hard to comprehend how someone (ahem, Nikki!) can do it in under four hours and, since I've never even tried to run that far at all, dreaming about running Boston myself seems a little unreal. But it is still unbelievably inspiring to watch so many incredible athletes give everything they have on a sunny, 90 degree day as their legs propel them forward like a machine.  If you love running or if you just love competition, please watch this and be inspired. Try not to be deterred by all of the ridiculous jargon between the commentators.

If you are a runner, do you dream about running Boston? Have you already run it? Tell me about your experience or about your dreams!