The Citgo Sign

A couple of quick things.

Yesterday the 113th Annual Boston Marathon was run in front of hundreds of thousands of people - most of whom are not runners and just came out to see the spectacle (who can blame them).

First, kudos to the 2 Americans (Kara Goucher and Ryan Hall) who both came home third in the women's and men's races respectively. That's a pretty big deal. For the last 20 years an American in the top 10 on either side was an accomplishment. To have one in the top 3 in both races is a big deal. And bigger still is the fact that both were within a minute of the winner.

If you saw ESPN's highlight package on the race you heard them reference Fenway Park (home of the Boston Red Sox). Fenway is an icon in sports and someone smartly ran the course right past it. Something they didn't show you was the Citgo sign.

When you go to run the marathon (and I can't remember if I blogged about this before or not) veterans will tell you that if you can catch sight of the Citgo sign you can make it to the finish. Why? What's so special about the sign? Nothing. The reason it matters and the reason they say it is that you first catch sight of the sign at the top of Heartbreak Hill (which is right at mile marker 21). From there the course is predominantly down hill to the finish. So the theory goes if you survive the climb to the top of Heartbreak and see the sign you can drag yourself to the finish from there.

Fenway and the sign are about a mile from the finish. So the second thing about that sign is that if you can get to it you're basically home. ESPN mentioned that it was with about a mile to go that Kara Goucher was passed by the eventual winner. That happened somewhere in the vicinity of the Citgo sign. By the time you get past the sign it's just a matter of a few turns through the city streets and the roar of the crowd will pretty much carry you.

I think that Citgo sign is a little like other markers in our lives. The thing itself may not be that important, but it shows an important spot or marks a critical point in a journey. In my experience at Boston, I was very happy to see that darn sign and even happier to run past it (it turns out that running down hill late in a marathon isn't easy when you come from the plains where there are no hills to train on and the stair climber doesn't really simulate the down hill part of the equation).

The next time you see the Red Sox playing at Fenway, stop just long enough to see a wide-shot of left field. Just out beyond the Green Monster is the Citgo sign.