A Few Places to Watch The Marathon
For those of you headed down to watch the marathon this year, I’m going to post some biased suggestions as to where you might want to watch the race. I generally think it’s a bad idea to try to watch the race in downtown Boston. Unless you have a runner to pick up at the finish or someone you have to meet in the city, parking is nearly impossible and the numerous road closures make navigating the city on Marathon Monday practically impossible. Getting anywhere close to the finish line AND finding a place to park will require an act of divine intervention. Then you have to figure a way to leave the city.
I also think its not as much fun watching the race in the early towns of Framingham and Natick. I did this as a child and enjoyed it but in those days there were only 3000-4000 runners. Now, with 25,000+ streaming down Rt. 135 its hard to pick out your runner when they are passing by you at the rate 30-40 runners per second.
From my experience, the best place to watch the race is somewhere in the three mile stretch of Heartbreak Hill that runs from the Newton Firehouse (17.4 mile mark) at the corner of Rt. 16 and Rt. 30 up to the base of the beginning of the 4th and final hill leading up to Boston College (about 20.5 miles)
First, you should know that Rt. 16 and Rt. 30 in Newton will be completely closed to traffic. So how do you get close to that section of the course and find a place to park? Its easy. If you’re coming from the north (as I assume most of you who read this blog will be) just get onto Rt. 128 and head south until you get to Rt. 9. About a mile before you get to Rt. 9, you will actually pass under the marathon course on the Rt. 16 overpass which you will see blocked off by Mass. State Troopers with sawhorses. Just keep going further south on Rt. 128 and in another 1.7 miles get off on Rt. 9 and head east. . Take the left onto Centre Street. You now have three good options.
Watching at Newton City Hall (My favorite)
Watching at Centre Street
Get off Route 9 at Centre Street as described above but stay on Centre Street (no turn onto Walnut) and follow it until you hit the various road blocks. This will put you a little farther up onto the course at the base of the final and most difficult of the four hills that comprise Heartbreak Hill. I think if you try to go any further up toward Boston College, you will have a very difficult time parking. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2716257
Watching Near Brae Burn at the Corner of Dartmouth Street
The last but probably the least crowded place to watch on Heartbreak Hill is near Brae Burn golf course. This is just about ½ mile after the runners make their turn from Rt. 16. This is where I watched the race for many years with my family. In fact one particular million dollar house at the corner of Dartmouth Street where we watched and had a nice brick wall where we could sit has been recently knocked down and replaced with a much snazzier multi-million house built in its place with a fancier stone wall that provides a nice spot to sit and wait for the runners. You will need to take an earlier left off of Rt. 9 onto Chestnut Street and just follow that until you can’t go any further and park on one of the side streets. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2672227
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