BOSTON — The repartee between Desiree Linden and Shalane Flanagan was clearly visible from the TV screen to anyone watching Monday’s Boston Marathon.
The two U.S. runners seemed to be engaged in a very animated conversation. What could be so important?
It turns out that Linden was plotting her escape. Neither runner felt particularly good as they plodded along the 26-mile, 385-yard course.
“I felt awful,” said Linden. “I went up to Shalane and said ‘I probably should drop out’.”
Shortly thereafter, Flanagan, who grew up in Marblehead and was a two-time state championship 2-miler before becoming a national champion at North Carolina, ran off to a portable facility along the course.
That part was easy enough to explain. The pace of the race was so slow — it was the slowest race since 1978 — that she felt she could afford the interruption and still get back in time to contend. However, she did not recover, and ended up finishing seventh.
And oddly enough, the person who felt terrible and was close to pulling out, won the race. Flanagan ended up finishing seventh overall after her delayed start.
When the race began, both Linden and Flanagan were among a tight pack of runners that ran steadily against a headwind and through a myriad of puddles created by the incessant and heavy rain.
But well before the race turns from a steady decline to the inclines that make up Heartbreak Hill, Mamitu Daska of Ethiopia had sprinted to a 30-second lead, which she seemed to maintain through the Newton hills. However, imperceptibly at first but then obviously, Gladys Chesir of Kenya began catching up. At around the 20-mile mark, Chesir caught and passed Daska.
But while all that was going on, Linden had snuck up on both of them. She vaulted ahead shortly after Chesir went ahead of Daska, and cruised home the rest of the way.
Only that’s not how she saw it.
“I was running very scared,” said Linden, 34, who lives in Michigan. “I didn’t want to look back to see if anyone was behind me. I just tried to gauge it by the way the crowd was reacting.”
Even after she took the lead and kept extending it, she wasn’t sure it was really happening. This was her fourth time running the Boston Marathon, and other attempts hadn’t been anywhere near as successful.
“I think finally, as I took the turn on Hereford Street and onto Boylston Street, I allowed myself to think ‘this is happening.’ And still, I was worried that I’d do something running down Boylston Street that was going to screw this all up.”
The reason she felt so terrible early in the race was the weather.
“It was brutal,” she said. “My hands were freezing and the wind just stood you right up. That was the toughest part. The conditions really took the speed part of the race away.”
Linden becomes the first American to win the race since Lisa Weidenbach won it in 1985.
“It’s storybook stuff,” she said. “Running in this race, with my support group, and people who believe in me is just awesome.
“The (Boston Athletic Association) has always been good to me, right from the very first time I ran here,” she said. “They treated us like rock stars.”
