“It was always a dream to get there,” says third-year Northeastern student Jonah Jaffe, who will be among the 30,000 entrants on Monday.
Sunday night always figured to be a long one for Peter Milne.
“Anytime before these big races I tend to not sleep that well,” says Milne, looking ahead to his biggest event yet.
Milne and four teammates from Northeastern University Club Running will be competing Monday morning in the 129th Boston Marathon. For each of them, earning a place on the starting line is a victory in itself — equivalent to crossing a lifelong threshold.
“I grew up in the Boston area so I’ve been seeing it on TV ever since I was a kid,” says Milne, a mechanical engineering student graduating this year. “But I never really thought about doing it myself until I got to college. Then as I started to build up the mileage I thought maybe I could.”
His club teammates can relate to Milne’s emotional pursuit of what is arguably the world’s greatest marathon. Jonah Jaffe remembers crying at a lesser race in October when he crossed the finish line with a time fast enough to qualify him for Boston.
At that moment, Jaffe was overwhelmed with memories of watching his father running in the Boston Marathon.
“I was a wee person holding up a sign, being very excited to see him. I think I ran a couple steps with him,” says Jaffe, a third-year computer science and mathematics student. “That was always a motivating factor. I was inspired by it and so it was always a dream to get there. And now that I finally got there I’m super excited and proud and happy.”
This time his father will be among the crowds watching him.
“The whole family’s going to be out there,” Jaffe says. “I think they’re going to catch me at Brookline and then at the finish. It should be exciting — a lot of people cheering, all the club running people, which is going to be super impactful. I’m already so excited to round that [closing] bend and pump my fist and be like, yeah, let’s go. Maybe snag a high-five.”
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Emma MacDonald, a fourth-year business administration and communications major, is not part of Northeastern’s running club. She’ll be making her Boston Marathon debut from a triathlon background.
“It was always in my head that I wanted to run this race,” says MacDonald, who has competed in three marathons. “I feel like I’m ready to push myself. I’m excited, I’m nervous and I honestly don’t think I’ll believe that it’s real till I’m standing there on the start line and I start running.”
MacDonald has been training along the marathon course on recent Saturdays, which has helped prepare her for the support to come.
“There’s hundreds of runners out there every week,” MacDonald says. “It’s set up like a race. There’s aid stations. People from the neighborhoods come out to give out water. That’s been such a big part of staying motivated, seeing so many people on the course and seeing this community come together for something that’s so big.”
Club runners Ted Yee and Michael Nunes will be competing in Boston for the second year in a row. They expect to benefit from their experiences after both suffered cramps during last year’s race.
“The course starts downhill so you have a pretty easy first half,” says Yee, who will be graduating soon in mechanical engineering. “And then once you get to Heartbreak, that’s where it gets tough.”
Heartbreak Hill — the last of four hills spaced throughout miles 18 to 21 — is where the crowd noise swells.
“You get to look up off into the distance at all of the runners and how much further you have to go,” Yee says. “And that’s where the crowds start to get really excited. So that’s what carries you all the way up and through. Once you make it down the backside, if you don’t cramp up, you make it to the finish line.”
Running tends to be a solitary sport. But the environment changes with this marathon, where large crowds line the 26.2-mile course that skirts the edge of Northeastern’s campus approaching the finish line on Boylston Street. Their bright red Huskies gear should attract special attention from Northeastern people attending the race.
“The more screaming the better, especially towards the end,” says Nunes, who is graduating in mechanical engineering. “I think the most important [thing] is to just enjoy it all. A lot of people get too caught up in the (finish) times when it’s just the experience that’s so amazing — seeing the little kids early on, high-fiving them. It’s unlike anything else.”
Adding to the anticipation among the five teammates is their sense of togetherness. Bryce Buttrey had given up running for three years since high school. NU Club Running helped bring him back to the sport.
“I made some of my best friends on the team,” says Buttrey, who is due to graduate in interaction design and computer science. “After living in Boston for two years and seeing the marathon and going out and celebrating it, it made me realize how much I missed running and how awesome an event Boston is. So I kind of grew to love it.”
The five teammates have been assigned to different waves at the starting line. They may not be able to find each other in the swarm of 30,000 runners.
“But we’ll figure it out in the end,” Jaffe says. “We’ve done all our training together. We’ll be there in spirit.”