Boston Marathon fan wins Armchair Division

Legendary Boston Marathon champ Johnny Kelley (1907-2004) * This column also appears at BostonHerald.com

By John Breneman

The Boston Marathon is insane, right? I mean just do the math. Twenty-thousand runners times 26.2 miles of ankle-busting, knee-crunching pavement from Hopkinton to Copley Square.

By my calculations that's total 524,000 miles traveled … on foot. I found that quite an impressive statistic until I realized I could get that same mileage -- without the estimated 40,000 blisters and umpteen cardiac seizures -- from a couple of old Toyotas.

I was actually planning on running this year because I could really use the $100,000 grand prize. But I had to pull out because of, uh, a ruptured flexor ligament in my, um, quadriceps. Yeah, that's it.

I'm kidding, of course. I could no more run 26 miles than sneak into the papal conclave and cast a ballot for my favorite Cardinal, St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols.

Believe me I tried, and nearly died, at last year's race. Here's what happened:

I got to Hopkinton real early to get a prime parking space, then walked eight miles to the Main Street starting line and waded into the scantily clad sea of humanity. The aroma was a pungent blend of Ben Gay, Aspercreme and Triple-Action Gold Bond Powder.

Just as I was elbowing my way into position, the starter's gun went off. Bam! I was instantly trampled by a pack of 9-year-old Cub Scouts jogging for the Jimmy Fund and a contingent of bald hippies raising money for bone marrow transplants and medicinal marijuana.

Before I could even scrape the burnt wheelchair rubber off my back, I looked up and saw a couple stringbeans from the Kenyan junior varsity whiz by at approximately 35 mph. "See you in Beantown fellas. I hope."

Once I found my stride, I was like Rocky charging up those stairs in Philadelphia with that inspirational soundtrack blaring in my head. I was able to keep that up for nearly 200 yards.

That's when my right kneecap flared up as if I'd been stung by a giant bee, but it was actually just my ACL snapping like a dried-up gumband. No problem, I thought, I'll just tough it out. But by the time I reached the first mile marker I had tripped over my shoelace, twisted my left ankle and tried four different breathing methods, finally settling into a sort of arhythmic "gasp-wheeze-gulp."

At around three miles, I narrowly avoided a 10-runner pileup on Route 135. EMTs arrived on the scene within seconds, took one look at the twisted heap of human wreckage and radioed for the Jaws of Life.

Assuming the slow pace of that fabled long-distance champion, the tortoise, I somehow made it to the five-mile mark in Ashland. I swung my hand out to grab some water, but missed and accidentally punched myself in the face. The force of the blow knocked me into a motorcycle cop and, though the pepper spray clouded my vision, I managed to scramble away before he could cite me for resisting cardiac arrest.

By now my carbo-loading pasta dinner from the night before was really paying off, but my Cuervo-loading experiment was having the opposite effect. Pretty soon the acid reflux kicked in, warming my esophagus with the tangy taste of peptic acid and ravioli. Fortunately, I became distracted by what felt like an ice-cream headache in my left lung.

I switched to kilometers for a while to make it seem like I'd covered more ground, but got depressed at Mile 8 in Framingham when a guy with a peg leg and a bandaged head marched by playing a fife with two drummers close behind.

Around this time things were getting a little fuzzy, and I really couldn't say where I got that pony, but I rode that little guy all the way to Natick -- part Paul Revere, part Rosie Ruiz -- before a vigilant race official ordered me to ditch my steed.

Was I there yet? Nope.

Shortly after I crossed into Wellesley, I was overtaken by the Grim Reaper (with #17642 pinned to his long black cape). I assumed he was looking for the tubby, crimson-faced guy who blew by a few minutes earlier with a purple vein the size of a Vienna sausage keeping time on his left temple.

Halfway up Heartbreak Hill, I was gripped by the sensation that an angry falcon was trying to claw my heart out of my chest cavity. But that was just a hallucination. What really happened, an MRI revealed later, was that my aorta got plugged up by a chunk of Power Bar that I found on the road.

Undeterred, I ignored the brush fire burning its way through my innards, from my pancreas down to my bladder, and convinced myself that the dark blood trickling from my right ear was probably normal. But then one of my leg cramps began emitting a high-pitched whining sound, something like a circular saw cutting through a fibula or femur.

To this day, I have no recollection whatsoever of Miles 22-25.

I must have regained consciousness with about a quarter-mile to go because I distinctly remember the ghost of the legendary Johnny Kelley (#1 now and forever) tapping me on the shoulder and yelling at me to "keep going, kid."

Reliable sources report that when I finally staggered across the finish line, I guzzled four gallons of blue Gatorade and hailed an ambulance.

The doctor said I would eventually regain most of the feeling in my pelvis, but advised me to get used to the sandpaper sound between my second and third vertebrae.

Later on, I would be disqualified for the pony incident and for purchasing piggy-back rides through much of Brighton and Brookline.

But that's OK, because I actually have a small confession to make. I never even tried to run the Boston Marathon last year, and a ruptured quadraplexor tendon did not prevent me from joining the field.

I was home watching the action on TV. Somewhere along the line I decided to crown myself winner of the Armchair Division. And you know those ceremonial garlands the winners get to wear on their heads? Well, mine was made of guacamole Doritos.

You see, most of us can only imagine what it would be like to run those 26.2 miles, to participate in a singular event that symbolizes mankind's capacity for not only endurance and perseverance, but also for good will.

Twenty-thousand hearty souls logging half a million miles, raising millions for charity. We salute them all. This concludes our live coverage of the 109th running of the most patriotic race in America.

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