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Super Star
The 110th running of the Boston Marathon took place yesterday, a fact which probably didn't create much more than a blip on your sports-watching radar, unless:
1) You are a competitive runner yourself, or
2) You live within viewing range of the local Boston television stations or get them in your satellite package.
If #1 above applies to you, God bless you. I don't understand you, I never will understand you, but I realize yesterday was a big day for you and hope you enjoyed it to the fullest extent possible.
If #2 above applies to you, as it does to me, you have my sympathy, unless of course #1 applies to you as well, in which case, again, congratulations on your big day.
All three local network TV affiliates treat the Boston Marathon with a gravity normally reserved for presidential elections and major workplace shooting tragedies. It's not so much a sporting event as an ancient and grand tradition, to be marvelled over and admired.
It's a day-long event, complete with live coverage of the prerace hoopla, breathless updates on the positions of the leaders and race favorites, human interest stories, and, if all that's not enough, a recap of the entire day's events after the whole darn thing is over.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I recognize the superb shape these athletes are in and readily acknowledge that I could no more run 26 miles in just over two hours any more than I could hit a Jonathan Papelbon fastball or carry a football through Ray Lewis, even if given two days to do it, rather than two hours.
Still, I just don't find it fascinating, or even remotely interesting, viewing. They could run the same taped footage every year and I would never notice, unless it happened to be snowing or something on the day of the race. A bunch of skinny, anorexic-looking people from different countries running, and running, and running, the expressions on their faces never changing from the beginning of the race to the end. The Energizer Bunny should be so consistent.
Marathon running is even more monotonous than auto racing, and that's saying something. At least with Nascar, there's speed and an element of danger. With marathon running, there's neither, although anyone who's actually driven from Hopkinton to Boston could testify that at any moment a runner could step in a pothole and, gasp!, turn an ankle.
Even when someone is making a charge to the front of the pack, it looks to the average observer like your typical suburbanite out for a weekend jog. "Here he comes, he's making his move!" Slap, slap, slap, the running shoes keep hitting the pavement like a metronome, and the competitor going for it all has the same bored, slightly detached look on his/her face as an accountant after a long day of finding deductions. Riveting.
The best thing I can say about the Boston Marathon is that the Sox play at 11:00 a.m. on Marathon Monday, which means I can catch six innings or so before heading off to work, so it's not a total loss. Oh, and if #1 from the beginning of this story applies to you, take heart - only 364 days until the 111th running of the venerable Boston Marathon!