Don't Run Boston

It's actually the name of a race that takes place the day before the Boston Marathon in Milton, MA (dang... the 50K is sold out), but we'll get to that in a second. Next week will kick off the "Boston Countdown" series, which will include facts about the Boston marathon, the city itself, and whatever the heck else I feel like posting until we get to April 18th. But, in an effort to be semi-unbiased, I will devote one whole blog entry to why you should run the Boston Marathon. I think that's fair... 5:1 is better than 5:0 afterall... so here goes:

Sure it's old... sure it's famous... but so are a lot of things that now collect dust on the shelves of museums. So, I say we find a new marathon... we'll be "trendsetters" of sorts. I mean, we were already way ahead of the game on the whole compression sock thing, so we have history on our side. As a starting point though, it might be easier to pick a race that others already like (people might not take you seriously when you tell them that "Boston is a thing of the past" when you're wearing neon yellow compression socks). Most agree that New York, Chicago, Honolulu, Big Sur, Disney, and Marine Corps are good U.S.-based marathons (and some sites even rank them higher than Boston). Worldwide, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Rotterdam, Paris, and Amsterdam rank high on the list.

• Running Planet (U.S. only)
• America's Best and Top 10 (U.S. only... top 25)
• About.com (U.S. only... fall, spring, winter, fast)
• Runners World (worldwide)
• Marathon and Triathlon Vacations (worldwide; North America)

And, to help you out with some reasons why, here are some "good" ones:

• You wanted to try and break some random costume-wearing marathon record at London (because this is apparently the best race for such an endeavor), which is the day before
• Meb Keflezighi isn't running it
• Three starts just triples the chaos (and who wants to start running 26.2 miles at 10:40?!?)
• Close to 80" of snow is, well, a "wicked" lot of snow for one winter
• You might not make it to the end (ok, this is just ridiculous)