Did soldiers in full gear run the Boston Marathon?

Technically you can be "crossing the line" even if you started 1 foot away from the line and crossed it.

All those miles in those army boots? Ha!

I am guessing they probably ran a small distance before the finish line?

 

The Boston Marathon is one of the most strict/competitive marathons in the world, I don't think it would have gone unnoticed had they come in and just ran a short distance before the finish line.

I've ran a couple marathons and I couldn't even imagine running one with full gear and boots. These guys are probably extremely well trained and conditioned to do so.

 

If this is true, Wow!

 

I was at the marathon, about 100 yards from the finish line...I definitely saw many soldiers. I also dont really know how they would come in and run a short distance...although, it may be possible.

Runners are given numbers and none of the soldiers in the picture have those numbers, so it is a possibility that they somehow managed to start at a point other than the beginning. I just dont know where they would do so since its a pretty strict race.

 

I thought the race bibs had electronic position sensors in them nowadays. That is why and how you can trace participants via the internet.

 

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...ox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&um=1

The caption on the pic in the link above reads...

"Sergeant Rebecca Rais (center) and members of the US Army National Guard enter the town common in Hopkinton. They will handle crowd control."

This was from 2008.

In all likelihood, they do this each year, so it would not be surprising to see some of ones on the latter part of the race, just running down the finish line.

Why would anyone decide to kill their foot and risk serious injury by running 26+ miles in Army boots???? C'mon now.

 

A very good friend of mine got back from the Boston Marathon. Apparently as some sort of tribute a group of soldiers walked or marched most, if not all the entire track, and most probably ran into the finish.

They were definitely there at heartbreak hill.