Lets Make this the Official Boston Thread

The announcers are saying the weather isn't that bad. 47-50 degrees, light rain, but looks like there are huge wind gusts according to weather.com

The men are just about to start. They are showing a profile on the "Iraq Boston Marathon." Pretty cool. It looks like it is really wet out at the race, all the top guys are just doing a little warmup. Jogging back and forth.

The womens feed to the race is supposedly down right now. Hopefully it will be back up soon.

Eight women breakaway pack early...Kastor is in that group. And the men are off!

I'm switching between both local coverage and versus network. I'm dissapointed about the local coverage. It used to be on three different channels in the past, but as the bar tender at my local bar said, "it's like watching paint dry." Seems reasonable for a non-runner.

They just interviewed Pete Gilmore on the local and I think I saw one of the moultons running around on versus.

Women should be starting soon.

wejo wrote:

huge wind gusts

Nothing like a wind gust and heartbreak hill in the latter portions.

Top two guys are out in 4:49, the rest of the pack is out in about five-flat. The announcers are killing me already. Hopefully they will get better.

Good publicity stunt?

The two "leaders" are the Foot Solutions / Spira shoes guys - clearly a publicity stunt, but they're getting plenty of air time.

Women @ 5 miles in 28:02. Men's Wheelchair @ 1/2 way point, with Van Dyck way behind.

The announcers either have not figured this out or are being kind enough to not mention it, but the 2 guys in the lead are trying to pimp Spira (the spring shoe company that is illegal to use) the joke of a shoe company that is trying to use Boston for publicity every year.

Jared Nyamboki and Josphat Ongeri are the 2 guys in the lead and they're Spira guys. I don't think their jersey says Spira but they're listed as their guys in newspaper articles.

Mzungu what is foot solutions? You think Spira would at least be smart enough to put their name on the jersey.

commentators on europsort are saying that Boston elite athlete directors et al. may ban the two of them for life from runing boston. Can they do this simply because they've decided to go out way too fast? Surely this happens all the time, the difference is that it's just fairly reasonable athletes for once.

Two clearly quite reasonable if not amazing athletes, anyone know their bests?

Rita Jeptoo is leading right now. It looks like it is gusting a lot. They are almost single file. Denna is playing it smart and just tucking behind people.

bryn_r wrote:

commentators on europsort are saying that Boston elite athlete directors et al. may ban the two of them for life from runing boston. Can they do this simply because they've decided to go out way too fast? Surely this happens all the time, the difference is that it's just fairly reasonable athletes for once.

Two clearly quite reasonable if not amazing athletes, anyone know their bests?

No they are going to ban them because it has been said that Spira shoes or whatever they are called have been banned from boston. They have publicly stated that anyone wearing these shoes will be DQ'ed

Foot Solutions is a chain of shoe stores. Don't know where all they're located, but at least hear in the SE. They've got a group of Kenyans, Ethiopians, and - of late - Eastern European women who race a lot in the Atlanta area and around.

From the guys I've talked to, the company ties their pay to media coverage - newspaper pics, magazine ads, and apparently leading Boston.

Okay, that's fair enough and thought it might be related to that. Commentator was suggesting that it was because they were so far ahead of the elites that we couldn't see them!

34:50 for 10k, which is 2:26-27 pace

On the WBZ feed, the commentator is not identifying them beyond saying they are trying to get air time and publicity.

Jeptoo is leading, but doesnt want anyone to tuck in behind her so she is running on the opposite side of the road.