A LONG RUNNING SHOW

By Steve Wulf

ON THE MORNING OF APRIL 15, 38,500 worshippers from all over the world will descend upon the tiny town of Hopkinton, Massachusetts. In a bizarre rite, they will shed most of their clothes, spread petroleum jelly over the more sensitive parts of their bodies and affix little timekeepers to their shoelaces. Then, as the appointed hour of noon approaches, they will either stand in line at one of the 750 portable toilets or, much to the chagrin of Hopkinton's 10,000 regular residents, go natural. At the report from a gun, they will try to race 26 miles, 385 yds., all the way to Boston. In other words, they will "run Boston." And not just any "Boston." This will be the 100th Boston Marathon.

The sign in Hopkinton Green that commemorates the marathon reads WELCOME TO HOPKINTON. IT ALL STARTS HERE. Actually, it all started down the road in Ashland on Patriots' Day, April 19, 1897, when 15 men from the Boston area and New York City entered the first Boston Athletic Association Marathon. A 22-year-old lithographer from New York named John McDermott won the race, though not easily. A few miles from the finish, McDermott had to stop because of intense leg cramps. Fortunately, he had an attendant who answered McDermott's command, "Rub!," and he crossed the finish line in 2:55:10--which would have been good enough for 683rd place in last year's Boston Marathon.

Times have changed, of course. The road to Boston is now paved. The leather shoes that McDermott wore gave way to canvas sneakers that gave way to leather shoes. The start was moved from Ashland to Hopkinton in 1924 in order to lengthen the course to the classic marathon distance. And in recent years, the traditional post-marathon beef stew served by the BAA has been replaced by a pre-marathon pasta party sponsored by Ronzoni. But from the beginning, Boston has been immensely popular: the seventh running of the marathon in 1903 attracted 200,000 spectators. This year an estimated 1.5 million will cheer the runners on as they move from Hopkinton to Ashland to Framingham to Natick to Wellesley to..."Its obvious strength is 100 years of the best runners in the world," says Bill Rodgers, the folk hero who has won Boston four times. "But it is also the best course anywhere. You run through small towns on your way to Boston. You really have a sense of making progress."

If Boston has a patron saint, it is John A. Kelley, who first ran the race in 1928 when he was 20 and last ran the race in 1992 when he was 84. In 1935 Kelley, who was then a floral assistant, outdueled toolmaker Pat Dengis, eliciting this response from Dengis: "Would you imagine this, a florist runs 26 miles for a laurel wreath!" Though he received a police escort home to Arlington, Massachusetts, and a telegram from the Governor, Kelley was back at work the next day, preparing Easter lilies at Anderson's Florist Shop. He also won in 1945 at the advanced age of 37 and told a reporter, "Life merely begins at 40, and I have three years to go." Kelley no longer runs in the marathon, but runners can still pass him on Heartbreak Hill in Newton, where there are twin statues of Kelley--as he ran in his first victory and as he ran in his 61st Boston.

Over the years, the marathon has had its share of controversy. In 1967 a K.V. Switzer was entered in the race, giving officials no forewarning that they had--gasp!--given a number to a woman. (Roberta Gibb had run Boston the year before, but without a number.) So when some of the fellows aboard the press bus started kidding marathon guardian Jock Semple about the gender of this one runner, Semple jumped off the bus and tried to pull Kathrine Switzer out of the race. As Switzer recalls, "My boyfriend, who weighed 235 lbs. and was a hammer thrower, took Jock out with a cross-body block. I was so embarrassed and upset, but if I dropped out, everyone would have said that a woman couldn't do it."

Ironically, it was Switzer who helped expose Boston's most infamous imposter. In 1980 Rosie Ruiz jumped into the race at Kenmore Square, a mile from the finish, and passed herself off, at least temporarily, as the first woman to cross the finish line. When Switzer, working as a television commentator, asked the "winner" about her intervals, Ruiz responded, "What's an interval?"

Two runners who hold a special place in Boston's heart are Joan Benoit (later Samuelson) and Rodgers. Benoit, then a Bowdoin College senior, entered the '79 marathon on a lark, only to find herself at the front of the pack. With just a few miles to go, a friend handed her a Red Sox cap to remind her not to blow her lead the way the Bosox often did, and Benoit wore the cap home to victory.

Rodgers, too, came as something of a surprise. Considered a flake by his fellow runners, he went to the starting line in 1975 in a hand-lettered BOSTON T shirt. "I remember I was neck and neck with Jerome Drayton from Canada after six miles," Rodgers recalls. Incensed that the crowd was cheering more for Drayton than for the local kid, Rodgers took off. "I went from 2:19 down to 2:09. Today, they'd say I was on drugs." Rodgers would win the marathon three more times, but it was something he said after his '75 win that endeared him to Boston. Rodgers said he was heading for the Eliot Lounge.

Located a few blocks from the finish line, the Eliot is the Grauman's Chinese Theatre of running, with footprints of famous runners in the concrete outside. Inside, host and 24-time marathoner Tommy Leonard is anxiously awaiting the pre- and post-100th parties. "It's going to be like the Normandy invasion, only positive," says Leonard. "It'll be like a bouillabaise of society, a Noah's ark of life." Leonard can be forgiven his rhapsodizing. While Boston may go on forever, the Eliot will not: last call is this September. But not before Leonard captures the essence of Boston. "The sweet magnolia blossoms along Commonwealth wait until Marathon Day to pop," he says. "Everything falls into step."

--Reported by Sam Allis and Tom Witkowski/Boston

With reporting by SAM ALLIS AND TOM WITKOWSKI/BOSTON