Boston Marathon Weekend: Day 3

Today's schedule had LOTS of empty space in it, as most of it was related to several group photos I wanted to catch. The first thing I was planning on getting to (when I started the day) was the Golden retriever meet-up that was set to end at the Finish Line in the 11 - 11:30am timeframe. (100+ Golden retrievers together. How adorable!) The meet-up was to honor Spencer (and his niece, Penny), the Golden retriever who used to cheer on runners and hold a banner in his mouth. Last year he was named the official dog of the Boston Marathon, what would turn out to be the last marathon he was able to attend. He was featured on some of the banners that were hung around town.

I wound up noticing a meet-up brunch that wasn't overly far away from there to start at 10:20, so I decided to join the meet-up. Turns out, only the host showed -- none of the other 7 RSVPs showed up. (Oh well!) But the restaurant we went to (Thornton's -- a very popular local institution) took FOREVER to bring us our food (not so unexpectedly given how busy it was). But, as you can already tell, by the time we finished up and set out, it was already after the expected end of the Goldens meet-up. I made my way over to the Finish Line and caught up with an owner of a couple of Goldens and asked her whether the mass photo has already happened. Yep, the meet-up was over. Now it was just onesie-twosie encounters.

And, as it turned out, I also missed the first of the group photos: Marathon Maniacs. (There's a push to shift future timing for this photo at Boston to 1 or 2pm, when it is MUCH less crowded than it is at noon.) There were three other group photos that were on my itinerary for the day, but at 1pm, 2:20pm, and 2:30pm. Lots of waiting around, crowd-watching, and scrolling through marathon-related posts on FB.

(Several of the pacers who run for Marathon Pacing who were set to run the marathon on Monday. No, not as pacers, since the Boston Marathon doesn't use official pacers.)

(A small number of the huge membership roster of the World Marathon Majors Challenge FB group, created by Robert Wang (front and center with the backpack).)

(A decent contingent from the membership of the Squeakers 4 Lyfe FB group. Members either were squeaked in or squeaked out of qualifying for Boston at least once since they instituted the cut-off times beyond the age group qualifying times.)

I was a little peckish by this point, since it was several hours since brunch, and would be another 2.5 hours until meeting up in the North End for dinner. Yep, you guessed it: Dunkin' run #3, this time for a maple glazed donut:

It was a little chilly, so I decided to go into the Prudential Center for a little while to sit down and hang out before making my way to dinner. Shame I didn't quite realize that it was actually much closer to get there, and didn't require any transfer between the Green Line and the Orange Line like I thought, since I was getting off AT that transfer point at Haymarket. So, I wound up arriving FAR too early. What to do to pass the time? Well, when in the North End... Mike's Pastry. It was early enough that the line was pretty darn short. It took me maybe 5 minutes or so to get to the counter. OK, dessert for tonight and for Monday night: chocolate mousse cannoli and chocolate cream cannoli. Even with that minor diversion, I was still exceedingly early for dinner. I didn't even attempt to see if I could wait inside -- it's a small place, there's no chance that would have gone over well with them. So, outside it was, keeping an eye out for the rest of the party.

After a relatively short time, the next member of the party arrived:

Then a chance encounter with a couple of other friends of Jonathan's who were trying to figure out where they would go to dinner.

And Matt is one of the truly insane people who participates in the Barkley Marathons. (If you haven't seen it yet, you should watch the documentary about it. Truly fascinating.)

Finally, Laura and her family showed up a few minutes before the scheduled reservation time. As we were missing 2-3 other people who were expected, we invited Matt and his wife to join us.

The Boston attitude of the owner was hysterical -- though he was dead serious about his annoyance with our group at a couple of time. We all understood where he was coming from, and his position was correct. It's his total lack of tact about what he was saying that actually amused several of us (not that we showed him that amusement).

Dinner was delicious, the conversation lively, and it ended all too quickly. We weren't exactly given the bum rush after the hour that we were there (and, no, we weren't dilly-dallying), but we were given the bum rush so they could make use of the table. Very busy and very small restaurant -- we totally understood. It was that hour, anyway, for us to all make our respective way back to our hotels to finish our last minute prep, hit the sack, and be ready to hit the streets in the morning!