Marathon 2009

For those that don't know, I'm one of the photographers for the John Hancock Elite Athlete Hosting Program.  It's a volunteer position that I was much more involved in before the kids were born.  Now I only do race day photography.


Our volunteers are there on race day to assist the elite runners in our program.  We have special credentials that get us to the start line and finish line.  It's my job to photograph the process of the volunteers assisting the athletes in order to train future volunteers.

3 busses take all the volunteers and athletes from the Elite Athlete Village in Boston to the start in Hopkinton.  Once all of the athletes are at the start line we all run back to the bus that drives us back to Boston.  

This year for the first time I was able to get a shot of the actual start line.

Once we're back in Boston we usually have about 45 minutes before the first of our athletes cross the finish line.

I was there to get this shot of the female wheel chair winner waving at me.

This year was a very close female finish.  The winner is behind the guy holding the banner.  In past years I've gotten really great finish shots but the last two years there have been so many people in my way.

This is the third place male who is American!!

This is the male winner at the finish line waiting for the medal ceremony

This is the female winner getting her photo taken by all of the official media people who are allowed to go a bit closer to the finish line than I am.  I'm sure they all got great shots of her right there but none of them got my perspective which I think is pretty cool.

This is our fellow volunteer who runs the marathon every year.  This is just after he crossed the finish line 14 minutes FASTER than he had hoped for.