Behind the Scenes at the Marathon

This year the 111th Boston Marathon will be run, as usual, on Patriots Day. April 16th. The Boston Athletic Association (BAA) will be producing the event with over 500,000 spectators, as they have since the Marathon began in 1897. The Boston Marathon is the oldest annual marathon in the world - the modern marathon was revived by the Olympics in 1896, but is only run once every four years. As we were looking to run a story on the 26.2 we find out from the Globe that there were about six years that the 26.2 miles was just over 1,000 yards short of the total. Road construction and reconfiguration had eliminated a couple of the curves along the way which reduced the total distance. When the BAA found out about it they backed up the starting line. The trivia about the Marathon is almost endless - there's 111 years of trivia to keep you going.

To bring us behind the scenes of the Marathon, from the history, story, and anecdotes we turned to the Boston Behind the Scenes podcast. The great production values of the podcast and the interview style of host Adam Weiss has always made them a must listen. In the latest episode he talks with (for about 20 minutes) Marc Chalufour, communications manager for the BAA, and finds out all sorts of good information. One thing we didn't know yet, but probably should have, is that there's a computer chip in the shoe of the competitive runners that tracks when they actually cross the starting line - and makes sure that they get an accurate time from when they actually cross the starting line to when they break the tape in Copley Square. Marc Chalufour grew up in the area, watched the race as a kid, ran the race, wrote about it for a while, and now works for the BAA to support the Marathon operations. It's full circle, or some sort of squiggly line lasting 26.2 miles.

Image from the BAA Marathon website