Boston Utopia
PR Newswire, Boston 10-18-2020 – The Boston Athletic Association is pleased to announce registration open for the Boston Marathon Running Festival Week. Since expanding the classic 26.2 mile event to a weeklong festival in 2017 registrant demand has been overwhelming and reaction in the global running & fitness community has been strongly positive.
“In all the years I’ve been involved with this event I never expected such a sea change in not only organized running, but also the power of athletics to change the world.” Commented Guy Morse, long time Boston Athletic Association director. “Moving to the weeklong schedule in ’17 has allowed us to manage the 250,000 qualified athletes that the changing face of global attitudes towards sports produces each year.” Mr. Morse continued.
With the surge in awareness created by the global running community in the early part of the decade the much hyped ‘obesity crisis’ was relieved but a new crisis of capacity in major participatory athletic events, like Boston was created. As a result the ‘3rd running boom’ caused a proliferation of new race events and traditional events, like the Boston Marathon, to re-think their agendas.
“At Boston, in order to support all our stakeholders – the elites, the charities, the towns and the great mass of qualified runners – we expanded the traditional event to a weeklong festival of races, culminating with the elite race on Patriot’s Day.” Added Jack Fleming, Marketing Director for the B.A.A. “It’s important that we as an organization keep up with the needs of our constituents,” He continues. “And I think you’ll find we have always made the appropriate changes, successfully over the years in this regard.”
Another development enabling the road closures and traffic scheduling necessary to stretch the event to a weeklong festival is the rapid decrease in automobile commuters in the last 10 years. As the world community embraced the fiscal, societal and health benefits of a more active lifestyle, automobile traffic has dropped in the developed world by 50%, replaced by bicycle and other environmentally friendly commutes.
“We’ve had to reconfigure some of the route for bicycle access,” says Dave McGillivary, race director, “but overall the lack of traffic and cleaner environment has made our job easier throughout the week.” Mr. McGillivary will be running his 43rd Boston this year. “We actually add back into the energy grid since the boys over at MIT figured out how to harness the energy of the running festival, and the towns love that.”
The B.A.A. expects records numbers for the 2020 Boston Marathon Week and would like to thank the participating charities, the towns, but most importantly the active global running community that has made this vision a reality by getting out every day and inspiring the world to change over the last decade.
Chris Russell lives and trains in suburban Massachusetts with his family and Border collie Buddy. Chris is the author of “The Mid-Packer’s Lament”, and “The Mid-Packer’s Guide to the Galaxy”, short stories on running, racing, and the human comedy of the mid-pack. Chris writes the Runnerati Blog at www.runnerati.com. Chris’ Podcast, RunRunLive is available on iTunes and at www.runrunlive.com. Chris also writes for CoolRunning.com (Active.com) and is a member of the Squannacook River Runners and the Goon Squad.
Email me at cyktrussell at Gmail dot com
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