Come fall, a rite of spring - Albany Times Union

Hopkinton, Mass.

"It All Starts Here."

The motto is bannered on the Hopkinton website, laid into the floor of Marathon Elementary School, painted on a sign that sends Boston Marathon participants off on their way to Copley Square. Since 1924, this 300-year-old town serendipitously located 26.2 miles west of Boston has been the starting line for the world's most prestigious road race and, like Marathon and Athens themselves, the two are enduringly linked.

"It gets stronger and stronger every year, this relationship," said Tim Kilduff, a longtime Hopkinton resident and former Boston Marathon race director. "We see it as: The spirit of the marathon resides in Hopkinton, and we lend it out one day a year."

From the starting line in this leafy Colonial town to the finish on Boylston Street, residents and runners are preparing for a spring without the Boston Marathon — the first in 124 years. Organizers and authorities have postponed the race originally scheduled for Monday until Sept. 14 because of the coronavirus pandemic, stripping the streets of brightly colored singlets and opening a gap in the sporting schedule for runners from all over the world.

"Tradition's an overused word. But this really is a rite of spring," Kilduff said. "So this year it will lead into a beautiful fall season in New England."

On a regular marathon weekend, Hopkinton triples in size from its 16,000 residents to absorb a field of more than 30,000 runners, wheelchair racers and hand cyclists. The Town Common teems with people, along with food carts and other vendors serving both tourists and race participants previewing the course.

But while others may think of Hopkinton only on the third Monday in April, the marathon and its essence permeates the town all year.

Residents drive over the starting line painted on Main Street on their way to work or to concerts at the gazebo. An International Marathon Center is planned for the town, a sister city of Marathon, Greece, where the long-running tradition was birthed. There are three marathon-related statues in Hopkinton, including "The Starter," which stands at the starting line, pistol raised, ready to send the field off for another race to Boston's Back Bay.

These days, his face is covered with a cloth mask.

"This is not the NBA or baseball or the NFL. This is ours," said Kilduff, who was the race director in 1983-84, ran the marathon in 1985 and for the last 33 years has been a spotter on the truck that leads the men's field to the finish line.

"Anybody who has run the race, volunteered for the race, supported the race, feels that they own a part of the race. They own just a little bit. So it's ours," he said. "The Boston Marathon is almost bigger than itself in the emotion it elicits, and the respect that people have for it."

At Wellesley College, where the cheering is so loud it is known as the Scream Tunnel, students traditionally wave signs encouraging the runners to stop for a kiss. It's hard to imagine this custom — already a relic of another era — surviving post-pandemic.

"A lot of the signs are jokes about kissing. That's part of the tradition, too," said Erin Kelly, a senior who returned home to San Diego when the campus closed. "The marathon is just a big part of Wellesley's culture. I was looking forward to seeing it as a student one last time."

Oncologist Amy Comander decided to run the Boston Marathon in 2013, when colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital treated many of those injured when two pressure-cooker bombs exploded at the finish line.

"I just told myself: You're running next year. And I did," she said.

And every year since.

Comander is registered to run for her seventh year in a row, this time to raise money for cancer survivors and their families; she is still determined to do so in September. But on Monday, she will be caring for cancer patients, a task more stressful because of the danger the coronavirus poses to their weakened immune systems.

"I will be a little sad," said Comander, who plans to take a break from the clinic to get in an 8-mile run — but not on the course, per the request of authorities concerned about crowds. "I feel like I need to do that for myself."

The daffodils are in bloom now from Hopkinton Green to Copley Square and all along the 26.2-mile route in between. Thousands of the bright yellow flowers were planted after the 2013 bombing as a symbol of rebirth and resilience. This year, many of the flowers grown to decorate the course were placed outside of hospitals to thank health care staffers for working through the pandemic.

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