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HOPKINTON, Mass. (AP) – Light, rapid rain and weather in the 1950s greeted runners preparing for the Boston Marathon, which takes place Monday for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
It’s been 30 months since the athletes ran 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) in Copley Square in Boston, the 125th edition of the Boston Marathon, which is the oldest and most prestigious annual marathon in the world.
Race director Dave McGillivray has dispatched a group of about 30 members of the Massachusetts National Guard to run the course each year at 6 a.m., announcing the start of the event. McGillivray said after being relieved to finally be back.
“It’s a great feeling to be on the road,” he said. “Everyone is excited. We are looking forward to a good day.
Last year’s race was postponed to September due to the pandemic, then canceled for the first time in its history. Registered runners were encouraged to cover the distance themselves as a virtual event. This year’s run has been moved from Patriots’ Day to April in hopes that the pandemic will subside.
Everything is different. This is the first fall edition of the marathon. Runners had to prove they were vaccinated or had to test negative for COVID-19. They leave Boston by bus at staggered times for a rolling departure. They don’t wait and stretch in the traditional athlete village before lining up in the corrals. They are supposed to walk to the start and go. Wearing a mask is compulsory until crossing the starting line.
Doug Flannery, a 56-year-old Illinois resident, was at the start, waiting to run his sixth Boston Marathon. He said the COVID-19 procedures went well at the medical tent and it’s great to get back on the line in a race.
“I love that we are coming back to races across the country and the world,” he said. “It gives people hope that things are starting to come back.”
For social distancing, the field is about a third smaller, with around 18,000 runners instead of 30,000. It includes more Americans than normal, as many athletes from countries with strict quarantine rules don’t have could not attend. Almost 30,000 people organize the virtual event.
Crowds along the route should be smaller. Students at Wellesley College were told not to kiss runners as they pass the school’s iconic ‘tunnel of scream’ near the halfway point.
Taylor Willwerth and Erin Winsor, both 23, were at the town to cheer on 23-year-old Annie Dumas, who is running her first marathon. Friends grew up in Hopkinton and often cheered on runners as children. They said they wouldn’t miss the race and felt comfortable being there because they are vaccinated.
There was a heavy police presence with patrol cars circulating the streets and officers gathered along the route. In 2013, two bombs killed three spectators and maimed more than 260 others at the Boston Marathon.
Dumas said that even with smaller crowds, “the spirit will still be there”. She runs with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in honor of her mother, who is being treated there.
Lawrence Cherono and Worknesh Degefa are not returning to defend their 2019 titles. But 13 former champions and five Paralympic athletes who won gold in Tokyo compete in the elite realm, according to the Boston Athletic Association.
This group includes Lelisa Desisa, who won the men’s race in 2013 and 2015 and finished second in 2019 by two seconds; Desiree Linden, who in 2018 became the first American woman to win since 1985; Yuki Kawauchi who in 2018 won the first Boston title of Japan since 1987; reigning wheelchair champion and course record holder Manuela Schär; and defending men’s wheelchair champion Daniel Romanchuk, who won the Chicago Marathon yesterday.
New York Marathon winner Shalane Flanagan, Massachusetts, is expected to run Boston as part of a quest to complete all six major marathons in a row this fall. Flanagan, who retired from professional running in 2019, ran the third race of the series, the Chicago Marathon yesterday. Retired racing driver Danica Patrick plans to run the Boston Marathon for the first time.
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Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, contributed to this report.
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