AMAA runs Boston.

  There are two Boston Marathons. One is the outer event. The Boston of
the sportswriters. The World Series of distance runners, attracting
athletes and characters from all over the world. The Patriots' Day event
filled with funny and odd and touching happenings all the way from
Hopkinton to Boston. The other Boston is an inner event. It concerns
itself with what these thousands of runners are looking for. The search,
whether they know it or not, for one's "true gravity."
--George Sheehan, MD

The late, great Dr. George Sheehan wrote these words after running a Boston Marathon where he let go of any expectations about time (it was a particularly scorching day) and re-discovered the joy of running. "After nine agonizing Bostons, nine Patriots' Days of worrying about pace and time and even finishing, I finally found, if only for a few miles, what running was all about," he wrote. For the 111th Boston, AMAA runners didn't have the high temperatures that inspired Sheehan's "Zen moment," but high winds, heavy rain and cold temperatures offered them the same opportunity to reevaluate goals.

Pre-dawn rain pounded Boston as AMAA members listened to the wind howl and ate bagels and bananas in the lobby of the Colonnade Hotel on April 16. "It's going to be in our faces, which is a blessing in disguise. It takes all the pressure off times," said American Running Association (ARA) President Jeff Harbison, in town for the marathon and the AMAA Sports Medicine Symposium.

The association's 100-plus runners adjusted hats and ponchos, pulled on sweats and wrapped plastic bags around their shoes as they prepared to board buses for the race start in Hopkinton. AMAA Board Member Mark Courtney ran his 28th Boston, and he rated the weather as "the worst" he had ever faced. "You just have to throw away the time," he said. "You re-process your goals." Courtney, a perennial Boston qualifier and last year's fastest AMAA runner, decided on the morning of the race that his revised goal was to finish as close as possible to his slowest Boston time of three hours. With conditions still treacherous as the race start neared, Courtney predicted that no more than 300 runners would break the three-hour mark in the 2007 run. (Some 3000 went sub-three at Courtney's first Boston.)

Among 23,900 registered runners, 2,400 never checked in to pick up their race bibs. Organizers attributed the higher-than-usual no-show stats to the northeaster storm that cancelled flights and caused power outages across a number of states.

"I'm just going to enjoy it," said Sam Hamati, MD, an OB/GYN practitioner from Spring Lake, Michigan. Hamati, who encourages his patients to run, completed his fifth marathon. Kevin Haley, DDS, running his third marathon, looked out at the pre-race conditions and observed: "I live in Arizona. We haven't seen this much rain in 30 years collectively." In reply, New Jersey pediatrician Daniel Foran, DO, reflected, "Well, I practiced for this by swimming. Cross training always pays off." Foran's 6th race in Boston was his 23rd marathon.

In the end, the weather gods smiled on runners. With the worst of the rain and wind gone by race start, the course was not the "brutal run" that Courtney and other runners feared it would be. After 26.2 miles, 944 runners finished under three hours. "We expected the worst, but we were lucky," said Courtney who completed the course in 2:57:31. Finishing first among AMAA runners, Michael Weiss, MD, crossed the line at 2:52:35 for 441st place in overall competition. "I couldn't feel my quads. They never warmed up," said the Floridian after the race. This was the 11th marathon for Weiss, a gastroenterologist in Clearwater. Weiss and Courtney are among about 30 AMAA runners who turned in fast enough times in other marathons to qualify for the race in Boston.

In addition to these "qualifiers," 115 participants registered through the "Run the Boston Marathon with AMAA" program, which affords members the opportunity to run in the prestigious race without the need for a qualifying time, as well as the chance to earn CME credits at the association's two-day symposium. Funds raised by the program support educational efforts. For more than 30 years, race organizers have encouraged the participation of AMAA physicians and medical professions at Boston by providing a limited number of marathon slots for members who have pledged that they are capable of completing the course in less than six hours. AMAA participation at Boston goes beyond running; the organization helped provide the first comprehensive medical services at Boston, establishing a model for the standard of care at all other marathons.

Moses Christian, 74, took up running 12 years ago, and he has run Boston with AMAA for the past four years. The septuagenarian, a role model for doctors and patients decades younger, runs an official marathon or at least the distance of a marathon every month. His secret: "I don't run fast."