Boston Marathon

It is the oldest continuous annual marathon on earth. The massive event was directly inspired by the revival of the marathon at the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens, and Boston hosted its very first race just one year later in 1897 with exactly fifteen runners.

It always happens on a Monday. While most major races take place on Sundays to avoid traffic, this event is strictly tied to Patriots’ Day, a beloved Massachusetts state holiday commemorating the first battles of the American Revolutionary War.

The distance actually used to be shorter. The original route was only about twenty-four and a half miles long, and the distance was not officially changed to the modern twenty-six point two miles until 1924 to match the new Olympic standard.

Women had to crash the course to prove themselves. While women were not officially allowed to register for the marathon until 1972, pioneering female athletes bravely sneaked into the race in the late 1960s, hiding in the bushes and wearing oversized hoodies to prove to the world that women could easily handle the grueling distance.

The Scream Tunnel is deafeningly loud. Around the halfway point, the students of Wellesley College line the streets to create a massive wall of sound, cheering so enthusiastically and holding up thousands of humorous signs that runners can actually hear the roar from a full mile away.

Heartbreak Hill is more about biology than altitude. The infamous hill is actually less than a hundred feet tall, but because it perfectly hits runners at mile twenty, right when their leg muscles are completely out of glycogen, the physics of the incline feel like climbing a massive mountain.

The course technically disqualifies world records. Because the route is a point-to-point layout that constantly runs downhill and heading east, a runner with a strong tailwind could gain an unfair advantage, meaning the governing body of track and field will not recognize any absolute world records set here.

You have to earn your spot at the starting line. Unlike most massive city marathons that use a simple lottery system, Boston is incredibly famous for requiring amateur runners to meet punishing, age-graded qualifying times at previous races just to submit an application.

The legendary medals feature a mythical creature. The official symbol of the Boston Athletic Association is a unicorn, which is heavily stamped onto every finisher medal because the mythical beast beautifully represents the pursuit of an impossible, idealized athletic goal.

The finish line is marked by a massive beacon of hope. When exhausted runners finally push past mile twenty-five, they look up to see the giant, glowing Citgo sign hovering over the city skyline, signaling that the end of the race is just minutes away.

Baseball fans provide the ultimate late-race energy boost. The marathon perfectly coincides with the traditional morning game for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, and when the game ends, thousands of energized baseball fans spill directly out onto the course just in time to cheer on the struggling runners.

The weather is an absolute wild card. Springtime in New England is completely unpredictable, meaning runners have historically had to battle through everything from dangerously scorching hundred-degree heatwaves to freezing, blinding nor’easter rainstorms on race day.

Winners used to get paid in beef stew. For the vast majority of the history of the event, the race was strictly for amateurs, meaning the incredibly fast winners received absolutely zero prize money, taking home nothing but an olive wreath and a hearty bowl of beef stew until cash prizes were finally introduced in 1986.

A fresh starting line is painted every single year. In the small, quiet town of Hopkinton, locals treat the race like a massive festival, and painters carefully brush a brand new, crisp yellow starting line across the street in the weeks leading up to the starting gun.

The phrase Boston Strong changed the city forever. Following the tragic bombings in 2013, the local community and the global running world rallied together under the banner of Boston Strong, transforming the marathon into an unstoppable, emotional symbol of ultimate human resilience and fierce unity.