Seems like an odd day for a race. I mean, it's kind of cool that they both start with the same letter... makes it easy to remember... but that's not why they did it. The Boston Marathon is run on Patriots' Day. Never heard of this holiday? It's ok... most people who grew up outside of MA and ME never have (although I never realized this until I went to college in CT). Patriots' Day commemorates the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which kicked off the Revolutionary War so to speak. In addition to the Boston Marathon, the Patriot's Day 5-miler is run in Maine, and the Red Sox play at Fenway Park. Oh yeah, and there is a re-enactment of the battle on the Lexington Green and Concord Bridge at the appropriate times (neither one of these places is that exciting to visit, although we took numerous field trips to each in elementary and middle school).
Ok, although it's convenient to hold the race on a holiday insofar as traffic logistics, potential volunteers, etc., there are a lot of holidays that the race could be held on. So, why Patriots' Day? Well, similar to the whole Pheidippides running from Marathon to Athens thing, the original "makers" of the Boston Marathon wanted to commemorate a similar heroic trip, namely that of Paul Revere. However, when they tried to retrace the route from Boston to Concord, the 19th Century equivalent of the Big Dig was going on (really, it's never stopped) and the bridge from Boston to Cambridge was closed. So, they chose a different route, following train tracks for mile after mile. They eventually stopped in Ashland, which served as the official start of the race until 1923 when the course was lengthened to comply with the Olympic standard.
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