hero for a day

 yesterday was patriot’s day.  aka marathon monday.  

it’s a holiday here is massachusetts.  a day when we celebrate things like the first shots fired in the revolutionary war, skinny kenyans, and not-so-skinny dominicans.  a day of heroes of all sorts: the original american soldiers, world-class runners, and baseball players.

patriot’s day is my favorite holiday in this state.  it’s the unofficial start of summer to me.   when i worked in public accounting, it was the sign that busy season was over and baseball season had begun.  nice weather sweeps in and pushes out the snow and grey skies of winter. 

ah, patriot’s day. 

but patriot’s day wasn’t so sweet this year, as i had to work.  what a shame.  however, i still found time to log in to wbztv.com just before noon to see the end of the marathon.  i witnessed the closest women’s finish in history, where dire tune and alevtina biktimirova duked it out to the finish.  (how can a woman find it in her to kick a quarter mile to the finish after running 26 miles at 5:33 pace?)

ah, patriot’s day.

even though i missed out on the day time festivities, i decided to take a run after work and run the last stretch of the course from kenmore square through the finish line and to our place.  the area looked like a scene from new year’s eve with trash, puke, and alcohol littering the streets.  (i couldn’t tell if it was athlete vomit or alcohol vomit — probably both). 

i decided against actually running through the finish line, already looking like a total poser crusing the streets some six hours after the elite women finished the race. 

instead, i cruised the side streets, curving around the medical tents, running past the runners in plain clothes with a finisher’s medal around their neck that were trying to find a place to have dinner.    i felt shamed running past them during my slow five mile run - i didn’t deserve to be on the same sidewalk. 

they were my heroes for the day. 

 

 

(edit:  i opened the comments for this post….finally)