lance

"excuse me, sir. can you move through the chute, we are expecting mr. armstrong any moment"

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i remember passing lance just after the 10K mark. i was running about 2:47 pace at that point, still warming up and i moved over to the left when i saw the teardrop shape throng of wannabes aping the yellow clad bumble bee squatting and grunting his way down the road. these were the salad days of the digital cameras and pre selfie. certainly no stick. seems these cucks were just hoping to get in the paper the next day. 80-100 runners aping a cyclist, trying not to be anonymous in a large marathon crowd. what a waste of all that prep letting an inexperienced cyclist dictate your race strategy for the day. the spectacle of celebrity.

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two night before i was with family and friends at alibi bar, a former jail turned watering hole, and a drink shows up in front of the closest thing to a sister in law i have and brought by a waiter asking if she'd like to make a new friend. waiter nods over to the private table where 7x has formed a bronado and has decided to a make a run at the local ladies. beesh, not missing a beat says "no thanks. i've got plenty of friends. besides, i'd never fuck a retiree"

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i had run a hard 60K trail race at peterson ridge the weekend before, and was only in boston to watch my friend, meghan, compete in the us olympic trials the day before. i signed up because i was heavy into western states training that year and where better to get a long run that monday. beesh lived on the course so we got to see her run by a few times from the comfort of the roof deck. it was disappointing to see the course changed from traditional route to more criterium style racing, but the volume of folks already in town to run the marathon made it a dream for the ladies participating. meghan honored uta pippig well that day along with being one of the oldest participants in the trials. 

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i didn't have to catch the early bus to hopkinton. beesh worked at boston childrens and knew all the routes to get to the start about 30-45 minutes before the gun so i could avoid the 4 hour wait sitting in the grass in hopkinton. during the drive up, she sees lights and sirens on the highway and pulls over to the side to see 4 staties on motos, followed by a unmarked cruiser with lights, a black van with LIVESTRONG on the side, another unmarked cruiser and 4 more moto staties going 90 mph towards the starting line area. full police escort. i would have rather seen the RD get that kind of treatment, not the cyclist. 

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not long after passing the ape train, i started picking it up and ended up running 2:41 with a 1:18 second half split. my board shorts had 5 pockets and an 11 inch inseam. i got lectured by a race official at the finish line about wearing my bib on my shorts instead of the front of my shirt. later, turns out my photo was in the boston globe as many times as lance that year. 

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no less than 200 photographers were at the finish line waiting for lance to come striding down boylston st. one of the volunteers in the chute handed me a bottle of water and threw her chin at the throng and said "whoar all these greasties waitin for? they think dunkees showing up with da chocolats with the jimmies on top? haven't seen a group up like this since jawny kelly ran his final finish in nointy too. kehd was ehty fowar". i gave that woman a big hug for making my day, said my goodbyes and i haven't been back since. 

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lance ran 2:51 and announced his return to professional cycling 4 months later. he rode in two more tours, never winning again and was given a lifetime ban for doping in 2013 and officially stripped of all his titles.