Run Down

26.2 secrets of the Boston Marathon

hether you run it, watch it, volunteer at it, or use it as an excuse to skip work or school and drink, the Boston Marathon is the quintessential Boston spectacle. And now, after the events of the 2013 edition, it’s become a worldwide symbol of strength and resilience, and an emotional touchstone for our great city. Even after more than a century, and all of this attention, however, this event still has its secrets. For example, the marathon began in Ashland, not Hopkinton, when it was run for the first time on April 19, 1897 across a starting line made in the dirt by a race official on what is now Pleasant Street in front of Metcalf’s Mill, a shoebox factory on the Sudbury River. The start was moved to Hopkinton in 1924 to conform to new international distance standards. Thought you knew everything about the Boston Marathon? Here are 26.2 secrets. See if you can keep up:

Boston’s is America’s oldest marathon, but it wasn’t the first. Thirty runners had competed in a race from Stamford, Connecticut to Manhattan eight months earlier.
 

The Boston Marathon was originally called the American Marathon.
 

Scheduled to begin at the strike of noon, the first Boston Marathon set off 19 minutes late, when the starter, Olympic sprinting champion Thomas Burke, simply shouted, “Go!”
 

Marathon organizer the Boston Athletic Association has its own marathon museum at its offices in the Back Bay, open by appointment except just before and after the marathon, with memorabilia that includes bronzed running shoes.
 

The first Boston Marathon was won by Irish-born New Yorker John J. McDermott, who swore he’d never do it again, but returned in the second year and came in fourth.
 

How to join the elite at the world’s biggest fitness show
 

Boston Marathon parent the Boston Athletic Association was established “to encourage all manly sports.” It had a clubhouse at Exeter and Boylston streets, with a bowling alley, billiard hall, Turkish baths, and tennis courts.

The first Massachusetts resident to win the marathon was Lawrence Brignolia in 1899. He also weighed the most of any winner: 173 pounds.

The marathon was originally going to be run along the route of Paul Revere’s ride to warn the Minutemen that the British were coming. But the distance wasn’t long enough.
 

For nearly its first quarter century, the marathon was 24.5 miles, until the standard distance of 26 miles and 385 yards was set. It didn’t become 26.2 miles until 1927.
 

In the marathon’s early years, spectators bet on runners to place or show, or on teams to sweep.
 

Since 1905, the marathon has been started by a member of the Brown family of Hopkinton, including Celtics founder Walter A. Brown, every year but one.
 

No one over 40 was allowed to run the Boston Marathon for its first few decades, though many did anyway without numbers.
 

Women were not allowed to run the marathon until 1972, but they did anyway too, including Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb, who hid in the bushes near the start in 1966, 1967, and 1968.

The BAA logo, a unicorn, symbolizes something to pursue that can never be caught.
 

In 1907, a freight train crossed the marathon route in Framingham as the runners arrived. Only leader Tom Longboat beat the train, and won the race by three minutes.

The first known cheater was Howard Pearce of New Bedford, who dropped out at eight miles in 1909 and hitched a ride. In 1916, A.F. “Freddy” Merchant tried that too, but a Boy Scout ratted him out.

The most famous cheater was Rosie Ruiz, who materialized at the 25-mile mark and was the first woman to finish. She had jumped in with a mile to go, and was disqualified.

Only once has the marathon not taken place in its conventional form: when, in 1918, during World War I, it was changed to a 10-man military relay.
 

Four-time Boston winner Bill Rodgers dropped out of the marathon on his first attempt in 1973.

 

Boston’s was the first major marathon to include a wheelchair division after Bob Hall was promised in 1975 that he would get a finisher’s certificate if he could finish in less than three hours. His time was 2:58:00.

The marathon did not introduce qualifying times until 1970, after the field broke 1,000. Applicants had to prove they could finish in four hours or less.

The marathon has never been canceled or postponed, even by snow in 1925, 1961, and 1967, sleet in 1907, or 100-degree heat in 1905. In 1927 it was so hot a newly surfaced section of the course began to melt, and in 1976 temperatures reached 96 degrees.

About 46,000 vehicles go through the Hopkinton exit of the Mass. Pike on Marathon Monday, compared to the usual 33,000.

The Super Bowl is the only single-day sporting event to be covered by more journalists than the marathon, which attracts 1,100 of them.

The “screech tunnel” of whooping Wellesley College women began when handsome Harvard man Dick Grant ran past the first year. He dropped out as soon as he got past.
 

Want to cross the marathon finish line without the bother of training? Go to City Sports on Boylston Street and look down. That’s the 2009 finish line under your feet. The store also has a chunk of the 2013 finish line.