The Boston Marathon Is the Heart of US Distance Running

Photo: Bizuayehu Tesfaye/AP

CEO Mark Moran is live tweeting as he runs the Boston Marathon. Follow him @markemoran.

As I write this, more than 26,000 people, who all qualified with previous marathon times, are running or have just completed the Boston Marathon, which weaves downhill and then gradually up Heartbreak Hill through several outlying towns and into Boston. Already, the top professional runners have finished, with Salina Kosgei of Kenya placing first for the women and Deriba Merga of Ethiopia finishing first for the men. The Americans Kara Goucher and Ryan Hall each finished in third place. For a play-by-play recap of the pro races, read the USA Today blog Game On. You can find complete, searchable results of all the athletes running the race at the Boston Athletic Association Web site.

Boston is in many senses the heart of U.S. distance running, even if the most talented running professionals now spend their time in verdant and high-altitude places like Mammoth Lakes, Calif. and Portland, Ore. to help them improve their fitness levels and compete with the Africans. The U.S. running boom, which started in the 1970s and called Boston its home, saw Americans like Bill Rodgers (who is running again this year after a 10-year hiatus), Amby Burfoot, Alberto Salazar, Frank Shorter and Grete Waitz burst on the scene, engaging in friendly rivalries and, in Rodgers' case, getting four Boston wins under his belt (for her part, Waitz won the New York City Marathon nine times between 1978 and 1988). They themselves were spurred by the efforts of athletes like Steve Prefontaine, who died prematurely and remains a god in runners' eyes.

Running Boston is no easy feat. It requires training for several months through the winter, which alone is enough to ward off a lot of runners. But our very own CEO Mark Moran is doing it, making this his fifth marathon in a handful of years and possibly his fastest, his previous record coming in Philadelphia last fall. Constantly adapting his training, Mark has shown that with a little Internet savvy, some creativity (he's added boxing to his cross-training routine), and a lot of patience, marathons can actually get easier, not to mention more enjoyable. (So much so that he was having trouble waiting for today to come).

Naturally, being an office of several distance runners—we're running the New York Ragnar Relays in May—we've compiled a series of inspirational and motivational articles, training resources and multimedia to help convert more peple to the Boston cause.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

If you need another marathon to help you qualify for Boston, want to start running, or have other running-related queries, our Web Guide to Running can help with that.

Comments

[Nathan]

Thank you so much for this post. I have just started getting into distance running in the past few months. I've run a 5K and am now training for a 10k. My goal is to run a half in the winter of 2011 and then a marathon after that. Posts like this really help keep me motivated and inspired, so thanks very much!