The Boston Marathon
My first brush with the Boston Marathon was April 16th, 2001. It was before I got my lucky break as a server so I was working as a hostess at Thornton’s Fenway Grille. Runners, spectators and Red Sox fans took over the restaurant and I was run off my feet, seating people and clearing tables nonstop. It was the first really busy shift I’d had since starting the gig and it felt like everyone in Boston had come out of the woodwork.
The first day of spring is technically in March but in Boston it doesn’t really feel like spring until Marathon Monday.
I’d go on to wait tables at Thorntons on the following three Marathon Mondays before I split town in 2004. I moved without ever running along the Charles, across the Mass Ave bridge or around Jamaica Pond. But I did feel a part of it all, having served beers and celebrated with the runners those four years.
I returned to Boston in February 2009. Fueled by a broken heart and by my PCP’s suggestion to lose a few pounds, I took up running for the first time in my life. I started running around the pond and then half-heartedly trained for a half-marathon. It was fun so I did it again in Nashville the following spring.
I’ve run a lot of races since then and late last year the conditions were perfect to consider running a marathon. With a little encouragement from my friends, I signed on to run the Boston Marathon.
I’m honored to run for Boston Children’s Hospital and to raise money for the good work they do. I’m running for BCH because they were there for me when I needed support in 2011 when I lost Avery and I’m running for Elaina Emerson, my patient partner who has Fibrous Dysplasia and is being treated at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Some of you have been following along with my training. THANK YOU for your support, well-wishes and cash money donations. My bib number is 26193 (OMG, my number includes Katherine Switzer’s number (261) from 1967 and OMG, she’s running Boston again this year. NBD). I’ve followed my training plan pretty close and with about a week left to go, I’m feeling little nervous but pumped. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.
If you told 19-year old Becca, waiting tables on Marathon Monday, she’d be running the Boston Marathon in 2017, she’d probably laugh. And then talk about how she’s never considered herself a runner. And that it was a lot more fun to drink bloody marys and cheer from the sidelines. Funny how things change, huh?
Please, someone have a bloody mary for me on April 17th around noon. I’ll be running through Natick then. <3
