Having grown up in a small town in Massachusetts, whenever anyone asks where I'm from, my standard response is, "I'm from Hopkinton...start of the Boston Marathon". While the the add-on is partly to help people understand how close I am to the city and to make my town seem relevant, it's also because the Boston Marathon is a really big deal in Hopkinton. It's the one day a year that everyone is able to come together whether they're running it, cheering the runners on with homemade signs, helping to keep the runners and spectators along the course safe, or opening up their homes to runners from all over the world. Anyone from Hopkinton knows that the Marathon is our biggest source of pride and that that pride goes beyond just the 26.2 mile course.
Marathon Monday goes hand in hand with Patriot's Day. People from outside Mass won't understand because they don't get this holiday (sorry!) but it's pretty much the best. Having the day free from school and work means waking up early to grab coffee from one of the many coffee shops and walking to join the the rest of the town at the start line.
Living at the start line comes with a lot of pride; both in our hometown and in Boston. The Marathon gives us a direct connection to our home city and the people in Hopkinton show their unfailing love for it through their shirts, bumper stickers, and the way they rallied to support Boston after the tragic events of 2013.
It means supporting someone we love. I can guarantee that by the time April rolls around, every single person in Hopkinton knows someone who is running Boston and will be there at both the start and the finish to give them the motivation they need to make it up Heartbreak Hill and across the finish line.
The Marathon is our connection to the world. Being a small New England town, there isn't much excitement in Hopkinton on a regular basis. But that changes every year in April when the elementary school students get to run with the Kenyan elite runners, middle schoolers compete in an essay contest about the first marathon in Greece and are presented with awards at the State House, and families invite the same runners year after year to stay at their house the night before the marathon.
Hosting the Marathon also means sharing our town with the world for the day. Almost overnight our town of 16,000 has to prepare for more than twice that number of runners to arrive. Our normally quiet streets get filled with hundreds of porta-potties, signs, fresh coats of paint, law enforcers, and of course; excited runners.
Just the presence of the start line in town inspires others to run the Marathon. There's something so amazing about seeing the thousands of people who show up to such a long way in all types of weather that makes you wonder what it would be like to take part in it yourself. The Boston Marathon is what makes my town so special and is the reason why everyone who has ever called Hopkinton home is, and always will be, Boston Strong.
