I decided to take the buses provided by the BAA from the Tremont Street side of the Commons to Hopkinton. I took the T to Park St. and when I got there around 7:30 or so, the main queue(which lead to about 20 different shorter lines where the buses picked you up) was only about 15 people deep. By the time I was ushered into shorter line to get on a bus, the line wrapped up Tremont, Park St and then back down Beacon Street almost to the start of the Commons. I can't stress enough how well the BAA and its volunteers managed the whole process of shuttling thousands and thousands of runners to the start. Whoever was in charge of that process should give the MBTA a lesson or 2 on transporting huge throngs of commuters in a timely fashion.
On the ride down to Hopkinton, I sat next to a lady from Washington state who had qualified for the Boston marathon in Phoenix. We chatted about Boston, while passing Fenway Park and then, on our right, early morning rowers on the Charles, and I was glad that all of our city's visitors were being treated to quintessential Boston sights on their way to run Boston's famous race. The ride went smoothly enough until we managed to give our visitors to another famous Boston treat: traffic. The Hopkinton exit off of 495S, was backed up and we were sitting in traffic for at least half an hour.
There were about 12 buses backed up off the exit ramp filled with thousands of fully hydrated runners and people were starting to squirm. At first there was only one man who couldn't hold it any longer and we watched him bound into the woods from a few buses in front of us. Then, slowly, one by one, many others began asking the drivers to let them off the bus for a minute so they could answer nature's call. It must have been quite a sight for the other cars to see the woods dotted with the backs of peeing runners. I decided to hold off until we reached the Runners Village; however, I'd like to thank everyone who bravely peed on the side of the highway, because the lines for the port-o-pottys were that much shorter.
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On Monday morning I was on the turnpike, driving to work in Westboro. There was a continuous line of school buses full of marathoners from Weston onwards. It was a great shuttle system for runners, if the rest of us had just stayed home. But picture a bus convoy traveling at the speed limit, pretty much holding the right and middle lanes and winding back and forth from one to the other, like a moving wall -- I wondered if I'd be able to get off at Rt 495. But at 495 it thinned out, and only a few state police directing the buses toward the 495 South lanes.
After that encounter with BAA logistics, it's fun to read about the downside of "hydration." Hope you had a good race.
Ha. How much power goo did you consume over the course of the race?
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