Boston Marathon

On an Isolated Marathon Monday, Runners Tackle Their Own Courses

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Kelly Ashton of Wilmington, Massachusetts, had a marathon finish Monday.

She ran six-mile loops in her town. And although this is not quite how she planned her Marathon Monday, without the thousands of spectators cheering her on in Boston, she says she felt compelled to run.

"My neighbors and my fiancée were awesome. They made it feel like the real deal. They made a finish line, set up water stations," Ashton said.

Tad Beuchert also ran his own Boston Marathon Sunday, starting and ending in Danvers.

"It was special, in a sense, and something I'll never forget," he said.

On what would have been Marathon Monday, the finish line was a virtual ghost town.

Boston Marathon organizers asked people to stay off the course route, with concerns about social distancing and taking resources away from the coronavirus pandemic.

But Beuchert ran it safely, six feet away from his running partner, and stayed away from Boston.

He's running on behalf of Team MGH, and a young boy with brain cancer.

"I kind of wanted to make it realistic, but you had to keep in mind socially distancing, and nobody can really be out, so in that piece, it was tough. I had my family there," Beuchert said.

And Beuchert says while there were no crowds to get him through, thinking of the child he's running for was motivation enough.

"When you hit mile 22, 23, it's all mental, and that's what you need," he said. "You need to know people are cheering for you, whether they are there or not."

Both runners say they plan to run the official Boston Marathon when it happens in September.

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