Discussion: Boston

Thanks for the photos at Wellesley. Gives more of a sense of immediacy than the newspapers or TV shots.

Looks like you caught the women's eventual winner Desiree Linden way back, wearing a black jacket with a green horizontal stripe, just coming across the intersection. She's on the NYTimes front page this morning, coming up Boylston wearing a similar outfit.

And that must be Mamitu Daska from Ethiopia wearing blue in front in your photo; she was supposed to have begun a surge and broken from the pack at about the halfway mark. Wonder what happened to all those front-runners.

We watched the race from the warmth of our tv show. Good coverage and mainly of the women as that developed into such an American show. The weather conditions were similar to here periods of pelting rain and wind with breaks but still cold.

Nice picture of the lead group. Daska has the lead at this point but Linden blew by her at the top of the hills and just kept going strongly all the way in, with no one in sight behind. Daska made it to 35k and seems to have dropped out. In your picture, Linden is in the back with Shalane Flanagan who had stopped at a port-a-pottie. Linden dropped back to help her get back in the race. Flanagan finished 7th. Also in your picture is Molly Huddle just in sight on the left of the pack with the black jacket and grey cap. Huddle finished 13th. Most of that pack must have dropped out as mostly USA women were in the top 25. Bring on the cold miserable weather.

Certainly some runners are more cold-intolerant than others. Kawauchi won a marathon in Marshfield, MA on January 1st., temperature in single digit numbers. Helpful for his perspective. Desiree Linden was adequately covered. Cold muscles can't function optimally. A heat-retaining something is better than nothing! Bare head, shoulders/arms, hands, of which there were plenty...brrr.