Wow, this is some Friday, huh? Yup. Some Friday. I can't wait for the weekend that hasn't happened yet. I hope I see a snapping turtle and a Pink Floyd laser show. That'd be neat.
When I left work yesterday, (you know, Thursday) I saw a CBS Channel 4 News truck drive by, followed by a couple of police cars. Some people standing on the sidewalk turned their heads, and I even saw a couple of guys running to see what was going on. Obviously I had no choice but to check it out and see what was going on.
I turned the corner onto Boylston Street and heard music and a muffled voice over a loudspeaker. It sounded like it was coming from the other end of the garden. As I approached the other end of the block, I saw a cheering crowd lined up along both sides of Charles Street and the muffled voice became more clear. The voice was announcing a name and a time, followed by another name and time. Then I remembered those guys that were running. I think they had numbers on their shirts. It was a race. The
JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge, and those two guys must have had a pretty good lead on the rest of the pack, because I didn't notice any other runners until I tried to cross the street. That's when they all came pouring in.
I kept looking for breaks in-between runners so I could cross the street. I couldn't just cut in front of somebody and screw up their finishing time. So I waited for my chance. There were a couple of times where I probably could have gone, but I took too long to figure out if I had enough time to run across the street. I called my mom to tell her I was going to be late because I couldn't cross the street. I wasn't about to wait for 12,000 people to cross the finish line, so I walked up the street to find where the race ended so I could cross the street.
I'd never been at a finish line of a race before. And now that I have, I can safely say that it's not one of my top five favorite smells.
