Tag: Marathon

The Boston Marathon Has Officially Been Cancelled

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The Boston Marathon has officially been cancelled for the first time in its 124 year history. The marathon won’t be held for the first time since 1897 and that is a shocking headline. Not because I am a diehard marathon guy (I did lead my track team in points senior year NBD), but because the Boston Marathon is an institution in this city. I don’t know if New York and Chicago feel the same way about their marathons, maybe because they are gigantic cities with multiple professional sports teams and a billion other things to do, but the Boston Marathon is a huge deal in this city and that was only magnified after the bombings in 2013.

It’s something that brings the city together every year, signifies the start of spring, and even lets us celebrate Patriots Day with a few beers at Fenway before noon.

I understand why Marty Walsh and the city are uncomfortable hosting an event that would pack a million people together in the streets. I wish they had waited a little longer to make the announcement, but maybe there was a drop dead date that would have made it impossible to wait. It’s already impossible to predict that everything will be good to go in September.

I’m a borderline germaphobe to begin with so I wasn’t going to be running out to the marathon this year either way, but seeing an event in the city like this would have helped bring some sense of normalcy back to our lives. For now we’ll have to look elsewhere, but it doesn’t seem like there are going to be any large events this summer or maybe even the rest of the year and that is crazy to type.

Obviously I’m fortunate to have the Boston Marathon being cancelled be one of my only coronavirus problems, but shit COVID really has just taken 2020 and broken it’s back like Bane.

To the runners that have been training for months and months to raise money for charity, honor a since passed loved one, or to just challenge themselves with an absurdly long run; keep grinding, it’s a marathon not a sprint.

OK, Dave McGillivray is Pretty Awesome, but He’s No Forrest Gump

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Photo credit: 777marathon.com

BOSTON — Before there was “Forrest Gump,” there was Dave McGillivray.

Gump, the fictitious simpleton played by Tom Hanks in the 1994 Oscar-winning film, trotted across the U.S. because he “just felt like running.”

McGillivray did the same, but with a singular purpose: Forty years ago this month, he completed his own cross-country running odyssey from Medford, Oregon, to his hometown of Medford, Massachusetts, to benefit the Jimmy Fund and its fight against cancer.

On Thursday, McGillivray – now race director of the Boston Marathon – will dash into Boston’s Fenway Park, re-enacting the last leg of his 80-day run in 1978. Hundreds of people since have matched or exceeded that feat, but McGillivray was one of the first.

Pretty impressive stuff here. No doubt. I can’t even run down to the end of my street without looking a 50-year-old dad after running away from a grizzly on a family camping trip.

But “Boston’s Forrest Gump?”

sally kohn GIF

Let’s take it easy with that.

Was McGillivray an All-American football player at Alabama? Did he receive a Medal of Honor from the President of the United States? Did he teach Elvis how to dance? Did he teach himself how to become a shrimp fisherman and open up his own multi-million-dollar company? Has he ever drank FOURTEEN Dr. Peppers in one sitting?

forrest gump drinking GIF by The Good Films

And above all, has he had his heart absolutely stomped all over for his entire life by the same girl but continue to never give up on her or any of his dreams at any point in time?

forrest gump love GIF

(Well, OK, maybe that has happened to him. I don’t know. Love can suck sometimes.)

Again, what McGillivray has accomplished is pretty remarkable, and the fact that he has done it all for the benefit of the Jimmy Fund makes me like the guy even more. I do think that he should be celebrated, and I hope it’s a lovely night for him over at Fenway this evening. I truly do. Get out there and support him.

But just remember: He is NO Forrest. None of us are, nor will we ever be.