Share this Post with your Family and Friends

Friday 4 April 2014

For Some, Costumes Become Part of Boston Training Tradition

Runners with CharityTeams gather for long runs in variety of outfits.

The forecast called for rain on the day she planned her 21-mile Boston Marathon training run. But Katie Horan wasn’t concerned about blisters or wet clothes.

She was worried that her ears would droop.

Horan is one of hundreds of runners creating a new tradition as they train for Boston and other marathons: Making the miles pass more quickly by dressing up in costume.

The theme for Saturday’s long run on the Boston Marathon course: Easter.

“It makes those really long runs a little bit more fun,” said the bunny-eared Horan. “Everybody is more worried about their costume than, ‘We’re going to run 17 miles.’ ”

On Superhero Day, a 17-mile training run on the Boston Marathon course earlier this month, Horan wore a pink Power Ranger getup.

As it turned out, “Hop-21 Day” — a play on the distance, the Easter thing, and the starting point for the training run, and the Boston Marathon, in Hopkinton — was a clear and balmy day (by Boston standards), with temperatures in mid-40s.

Successive waves of bouncing bunny ears and Easter bonnets appeared on the horizon as runners arrived, sipping sports drinks and adjusting Easter baskets filled with lightweight plastic eggs.

“I’m a worrywart. Instead of focusing on, I now have 20 miles ahead of me, or 18 miles, I just think about my costume,” said one runner, Trish Winton, as a friend pinned on her tail.

The costume runs were the idea of Susan Hurley, founder of CharityTeams, a consulting firm that helps charities organize and train their fundraising runners for Boston, New York, and other marathons.

“To make it a little bit more fun on a 21-mile training run, which can be very nerve-wracking for beginners, we wanted to take the focus off some of the other things they might worry about,” said Hurley.

“Sometimes dressing in costume or keeping it lighthearted will eliminate some of that stress of doing those 21 miles.”

Hurley herself arrived for Hop-21 Day dressed as a Playboy bunny, complete with fishnet stockings and bowtie.

“Where are your ears?” she asked runners who dared to arrive bareheaded. “Do you need some ears?”

The need for support like this is tied to the broadening appeal of distance running, Hurley said.

“Running has changed. It’s become so much more mainstream, with so many people now participating, and just the average person getting involved,” she said. “So I come in and work with the runners and put together a program that builds camaraderie and team spirit, and the fundraising becomes very successful because you’re creating a community of people.”

In fact, one participant, Patrick McMahon, said that when he trains alone for fall marathons, without the group and its costume days and other stunts, “It’s a lot more difficult to stay dedicated to this process.”

This year, when the New England Patriots were in the playoffs, the training-run uniform was Pats paraphernalia. Runners wore Hawaiian shirts when the temperature finally climbed above freezing. And there was a lot of green on St. Patrick’s Day weekend.

But it was Superhero Day that got the most attention, unleashing some 200 runners on the marathon course from Natick to Copley Square dressed as Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and a chain gang of arch villains. (Hurley came as Batwoman, and her boyfriend surprised her by flying in from Baltimore, dressing up as Batman, and running out of the woods in Natick.)

First-time marathoner Peter Riddle was already learning that running is a surprisingly expensive sport, and said he’s now dropped $300 on unanticipated purchases of everything from a wig to a pink tutu.

“All of this costume stuff, you spend a fortune,” Riddle said.

It’s worth it, he said.

“I’m not a shy person at all, but I am when it comes to Halloween and dressing up. I thought, 'I’m not doing that.' But you’re running together as a team, and everybody’s doing crazy, kooky things to get everyone’s attention to fundraise or ignore an injury or ignore some of the emotional stuff that’s going on with this year’s marathon,” said Riddle, who, yes, dressed as the Riddler for Superhero Day. “I had to. D’uh, I’m the Riddler.”

It seems to work. Last year, Hurley’s CharityTeams runners raised a collective $1.6 million. This year, the 318 people in the program have collectively passed $2 million.

Of course, dressing in costume for long runs can be uncomfortable. Having done it last year, Winton knew this year to get her Spider-Woman costume one size too big so she could layer on warm clothes underneath.

But that will make the marathon itself — for which they’ll wear mundane, standard lightweight tech gear — seem that much easier, many of the runners said.

“If I’m running with props in training runs, all I can think is, ‘I’m going to have to carry this the whole way,’” said Horan. “But when Marathon Monday comes, it will be great.”

Riddle, as the Riddler, dragged along a cane.

“The first few miles, it’s not a big deal,” he said. “By the time you get to Heartbreak Hill, it gets really heavy. But it teaches you about of all these obstacles. You keep at it and keep with it and alternate and adjust whatever you have to do to carry that cane all the way to the end.”

By betting fellow runners he could do that, Riddle said he raised another $400.

Besides, he said, “If I can run 21 miles in this costume, I can run 26 miles carrying nothing.”

As more and more runners show up wearing costumes, Bostonians who see them pass have started to become accustomed to them.

“Regular runners kind of give you the head nod, a little wave. People on the streets that aren’t runners look a little quizzical. I can only imagine what’s going through the heads,” said McMahon.

“The reaction is really awesome,” Riddle said. “I’m probably in the middle of the pack in terms of pace, and so you end up running down Beacon Street alone. It’s the people in the cars or on the sidewalks who look at you like, ‘What the hell are you doing in this all-green costume with orange hair.’ You feel like an idiot.”

But he added: “If I can run down Beacon Street looking like an idiot, I can do anything.”

Source

No comments:

Post a Comment