Boston Runner Completes A Marathon And Ends Up With A Typo
One of spring's largest events is the Boston Marathon, which due to the coronavirus, has been pushed to September. Boston's marathon is a big deal because you have to run a qualifying one somewhere else in order even to be eligible for theirs. It's grittiness and elitism baked into one event. It's also indelibly connected to the city via an act of terrorism that spawned, among other things, the phrase "Boston Strong."
Lindsay Devers, a nurse and runner in Boston decided to put together a reminder that nothing -- viruses, terrorists, or cancellations -- can take away from running strong in Boston. She decided to run a series of streets and turns in a way that her Strava app's mapping of her run would spell out "Boston Strong" at the end.
And it almost worked.
The block letters there spell out "BOSTOn STroG," which is merely a very large typo and not short for "stroganoff" or something (What would that even be, clam chowder with egg noodles?). Lord knows we've made our share of typos, but they usually don't involve hours worth of running. The amount of work that poor Devers put into this is devastating.
Devers wanted to make sure that her watch and app were both over the 26.2-mile threshold for a marathon. But they were almost two miles off-sync with each other, meaning she wasn't sure if she was running 26.2 or 28.8 miles -- which royally pissed her off when she discovered the discrepancy about 20 miles in her run. Devers' typo was about an 8-mile sequence, which means that she had to run that typo three times in a row. We can imagine how painful it was for her to realize that if she'd just gone about a block or two over, she'd have had room for the N.
Devers' had a good sense of humor about it, though. She thought she might run it again to get the spelling right, but has ultimately realized that the comic relief of the story is having just as positive an impact as any slogan ever could. Let's see "Boston Strog" on some of those little silicone wristbands, huh?
Isaac is on Twitter and Instagram @NotFunnyIsaac and will tell anyone who will listen that the half-marathon he was training for was also canceled.
Top Image: Lindsay Devers/Strava
