HOPKINTON — Eight or nine buses shuttling runners from Boston to Hopkinton did not make it to the designated drop-off spot near the Boston Marathon starting line, instead dumping people at a cross street blocked by police about a mile and a half from the start around 10:15 a.m.
Police at the closed off intersection of Cedar Street and Legacy Farms N in Hopkinton said at least eight buses got lost on the way to the starting line of the 125th Boston Marathon, the first time the race has been held in person in almost two years because of the pandemic.
The dozens of runners unlucky enough to be stuck on buses that got lost on the way to the starting line Monday faced a mile and half uphill climb before their races even began.
Runners said the bus drivers gave them the option of getting off at the intersection and walking to the start of race or staying on the buses to see if they could return to the interstate and reroute. Some runners who stayed on board returned to the blocked intersection a second time shortly afterward when the buses failed to reroute, police officers said.
Calls to the Boston Athletic Association regarding the apparent bus route mixups were not immediately returned.
Between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., dozens of runners walked briskly up the hill trying to get to the start line. Some ran.
“[Expletive] keeps going wrong,” said one runner who was among the dozens making the uphill climb on Cedar Street to the starting line.
“Our bus got lost!” one yelled.
“Now I’m really warmed up,” said another runner huffing up the hill. One took a photo of the uphill climb once she made it to the top to memorialize the trek. Her race had yet to begin.
Debbie Gilman, 50, has lived off Cedar Street for 23 years. Normally, Marathon Monday brings yellow school buses full of runners parked on her street and surrounding streets, getting participants as close to the race as possible, she said.
This year the buses never came.
Gilman and her daughter Julia, 19, headed out to watch the first races start around 8 a.m., and returned home shortly after. After a while, they started to notice huge herds of people making the climb up Cedar Street toward the race start line.
“It was such a surprise,” Gilman said. “At first I thought maybe they are spectators, then I saw they were clearly runners.”
Julia got in her car to drive down the street to get some coffee. On her way back she saw the stranded runners trudging up the hill.
“Everyone was giving me the hitchhike sign,” she said.
She picked up two women runners in their 20s, she said, who were incredibly grateful.
Gilman stood at her fence cheering the runners on as they made their way to the starting line. Many asked how much longer they had to go. One man was visibly upset, Gilman said, looking for event staff. Most were in high spirits, though winded.
“There was no stopping these people, they were determined,” she said. For a race that’s “26.2 miles, this is an extra one and a half.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Taylor Dolven can be reached at taylor.dolven@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @taydolven.
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Several buses taking runners to Marathon start get lost, leave runners more than a mile from starting line - The Boston Globe
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