Marathon
🏙 Capitals / Major cities🗽 Exceptional monuments📰 Culture & Histoire🏘️ In the city⛲️ Public park🌉 Bridge/Viaduct
📅Mon, April 19, 2027
🏃 Road race:26.22 mi
↗️ Elevation gain:165mD+ / -
Inspired by the success of the first Olympic marathon in Athens in 1896, the Boston Marathon was born a year later, on April 19, 1897. A member of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, this legendary event stands out for its extreme difficulty and its strict system of qualifying time standards required to gain entry.
On race day, logistics are an adventure in themselves: the 30,000 participants must make their way to the start line in Hopkinton, west of Boston, before tackling the 42.195 kilometers to the finish. Once the gun goes off, the rolling course offers no respite. The challenge peaks around kilometer 33 with the dreaded Heartbreak Hill, a leg- and morale-breaker of a climb, before the course drops toward relief in the streets of Boston.
But Boston also draws its strength from resilience. Deeply scarred by the April 15, 2013 attacks, the event managed to reinvent itself. As early as the next edition in 2014, the running community showed up in force: the field was exceptionally expanded to 36,000 entrants, one of the largest in the race’s history.
This marathon takes place on Patriots’ Day, a day of celebration in Massachusetts and Maine on the third Monday in April. It commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord, which marked the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. This symbolic public holiday is often called “Marathon Monday”.
Boston’s 42.195 kilometers were also the stage for one of the most famous cheats in marathon history. In 1980, American runner Rosa Ruiz crossed the finish line first in 2:31:56. She had actually left the course and reappeared a few kilometers from the finish after taking the subway. Her time from a few months earlier at the New York City Marathon—achieved under similar circumstances—had allowed her to qualify for Boston. Exposed by journalists and inconsistencies in her story, she was ultimately disqualified.
The Boston Marathon is one of the major marathons with the toughest entry requirements: a large share of runners must post a qualifying time, set by age and sex, to earn a spot on the start line.