255. Boston Marathon Handbook

[00:00:00] You're listening to episode 255 of the Marathon Running Podcast. In this episode, we're going to talk about the Boston Marathon Handbook. This is the Marathon Running Podcast and Letty Run's YouTube channel with Letty and Ryan. And yes, we're officially now on all channels. Join us for weekly content on all things running and let us take you from the starting line to the finish line and beyond.

[00:00:31] Hey runners and welcome to our podcast. My name is Letty. My name is Ryan and this is Lexi. And this is Lexi, our dog. And Ryan is saying that because we have made some changes. Our podcast is now available also as a video podcast on YouTube. I know it's not super convenient for a lot of people that run. So don't worry about it. I just wanted to let you guys know that if you do want to see it on YouTube now, we also are on YouTube.

[00:00:56] Lexi won't let me stop petting her. So that's why I introduced her because she's going to be here sitting on my lap the whole time. Probably you'll see her in all future episodes. Probably. So the Boston Marathon Handbook. Yes. The Boston Marathon Handbook is the book that we are going to interview the author about today in this episode. And we are doing that because guess what? What? The Boston Marathon is right around the corner.

[00:01:21] The Boston Marathon takes place on April 21st this year, always on Patriots Day in Boston. And we are very excited. We will not be running it this year, but we'll definitely be there to cover the news part, the elite runners, etc. And be partaking in the cheering. So if you could get an overview of the handbook, what is it about? The handbook is awesome. And we'll obviously hop into that when we talk to Mark.

[00:01:48] It is a book written by an author that resides in Boston. Mark lives in Boston, but he also lives in Florida, which is how I met him because he was on my flight back from Boston from the Boston Marathon. He saw my shirt that said Marathon Running Podcast, introduced himself, gave me his business card, and then we've been in touch. He sent me this book to look over for future episodes, which is perfect timing right now, given that the Boston Marathon is coming up. Do you have a link for the book? I do have a link for the book, and you will see that in the show notes below.

[00:02:18] So you're going to get into everything about it, but it looks like it's... I didn't get to read it. You read it. But it says Insider's Guide for Training and Succeeding in the Ultimate Road Race. So I guess it has training in there and all about the marathon and how to get there. It has all sorts of stuff, Ryan. It talks about why the Boston Marathon is so special. It has a ton of history in there about individuals who helped with the Boston Marathon. It talks about how to get in. It talks about training, the weather.

[00:02:47] It talks about the different cities that the Boston Marathon runs through. It talks about pre-race, post-race, and everything Boston and really beyond. It's very beautiful. There are some pictures of the Boston race on there and motivational things and a lot of quotes from prominent people when it comes to the Boston race. So it's really, really cool. I remember how obsessed you were with the Boston Marathon, so I'm sure you liked it. I am kind of still obsessed a little bit, right?

[00:03:15] I mean, not obsessed to keep running it, but I still am very, very obsessed about just that whole weekend and going there and how everything turns into Athletes Village. And you see all the runners and it's very inspiring. Yeah. Yeah. So are you ready to get into it? Let's do it. All right. So without any further ado, we're now going to play our conversation with Mark Polina. All right. So I'm on here with Mark Polina.

[00:03:42] Mark is the author of the Boston Marathon Handbook. Mark, thank you so much for joining me today. Letty, thank you. I've obviously been a fan from afar and it's great to be here and to talk about things we love, right? Running the Boston Marathon and this great city of Boston. Yes. And it's all coming up. And with that, I'm glad to have you on here.

[00:04:06] And well, perhaps just briefly before we get started with this book that can help the marathoners of 2025 and future Boston marathoners, perhaps you can tell us who you are and then also how you came to write this book. Wow. Okay. So I, long story short, I came into running when I moved to Boston in the year 2000, actually.

[00:04:33] And I had been a college baseball player and really wasn't built to be a runner in any way, shape or form. But I arrived in Boston and funny enough, I actually moved about a block and a half away from Heartbreak Hill. And I had no idea. So there I was living in Newton and I saw this hill and people would tell me about this is Heartbreak Hill.

[00:04:57] And it didn't really mean a lot to me, but it certainly did when I went to watch the marathon for the first time in 2001. And I was amazed. I was captivated, quite frankly, and I was looking for something athletically to do after having played college baseball and not going pro. It's in my DNA. I'm just wired to train for something pretty intensely.

[00:05:20] So the very next day after watching the race in 2001, I actually laced up shoes and ran for the first time a quarter mile. And I kept running and I wanted to run. I said, I'm going to run the Boston Marathon. And it wasn't until 2003 that I actually was capable of pulling that off. And I ran as a bandit. Now, that sounds horrible because we all know now that banditing is not something you do. And it's certainly frowned upon.

[00:05:48] Back in 2003 in the Boston, I talk about it in the book. The Boston Marathon does have a culture of banditing where they tolerated it for decades. Right. And it actually strengthened the race in a lot of different ways. And we can talk about that later. But I bandited it in 2003. And I finished and I was in a lot of pain. I had all kinds of injuries. I don't want to get too deep into it. But I was in a lot of pain. I finished the race. I did not get a medal because bandits don't get medals. And I said, you know, Frank Shorter has this saying.

[00:06:18] He says, you know, you have to forget the pain of your first marathon before you would even consider running a second. Well, I knew when I crossed the finish line in Copley Square. I was like, I'm going to come back. And I'm going to come back next year as a runner. And I am going to, you know, get my medal and finish the Boston Marathon officially. So the next year I ran with Mass General Hospital on their charity team. And I ran for quite a few years in a row. I streaked for 16 years.

[00:06:46] But I ran as a charity runner through 2008. And it wasn't until the fall of 2008 that I actually qualified for the first time at the Hartford Marathon in Connecticut. And then I've run as a qualified runner pretty much ever since. And here I am. This will be my 20th coming up days away in April. So that's kind of my running journey. And it's been just absolutely incredible.

[00:07:09] But the book itself was something where long ago I knew of a book when I was 14 years old called The Preppy Handbook, The Official Preppy Handbook. It was a book about the culture of preppiness. And it was written by this woman in New York City called Lisa. Her name is Lisa Bernbach. And it was just this really fun tongue-in-cheek guide to the culture of preppiness. And I was enamored with this book. I can't even tell you how much it meant to me.

[00:07:37] I carried it around in my backpack and it was dog-eared. And I'd always been and always wanted to be a writer. So it was in the back of my head, I want to write a handbook about something once I have the knowledge to do it, right? And the writing chops to actually pull it off. So I've been writing my entire life. I've written screenplays. I've written TV pilots. I've written fiction books, you know, books, novels, if you will.

[00:08:02] And I was sitting back in 2001 and I said, what am I going to write next? And it all came to me. It was like this perfect storm. I thought about all of my experience with the Boston Marathon, how much I loved it. And how much I wanted to share, not my story, but share the greatness of this race and this city with the world and do it in a way that hasn't been done.

[00:08:30] So I'll tell you one more thing. You know, many books about the Boston Marathon fall into two buckets, right? You have memoirs, like Choosing to Run by Des Linden. Fantastic, right? And you can get really excited about somebody's particular story. And those books are written in first person, right? I did this. I did that. And then the other bucket for Boston Marathon is historical accounts. So they're written in third person.

[00:08:59] You know, Bill Rogers did this in 1975. Catherine Switzer did this in 1972, et cetera. And I thought to myself, what's missing from this equation? I wanted to immerse the reader in the race in a way that hasn't been done before. So I wrote the entire book in second person. So it's like you're traversing the course as you're reading about the different towns along the way in your journey.

[00:09:27] So in 2021, I started writing the book. And two years it took all in the writing process, getting more than 50 people that contributed to the book to contribute, getting an agent, getting a publisher, getting it out in the world. And it was published on February 6th of 2024. So it's a year old. And it's been an absolutely fascinating journey to get to where we are today on this call.

[00:09:59] Absolutely delightful. I love it. And that's one of the things that, you know, the type of books that are written about the Boston Marathon. One, it doesn't have to be your cup of tea, right? Whether you like memoirs or historical books. But this one is also different because it has a lot of advice pieces in it.

[00:10:20] So I feel like it's very appealing for the reader because it's not just inspirational and makes you smarter historically, but it also brings that appeal of I'm going to learn something when I read this book. And with that in mind, maybe tell us how, for the people that haven't read it yet, how you laid this book out, how you went from going broad into more specific things. Sure. Sure.

[00:10:48] You know, there are certain things when I got started writing it that I knew I wanted to incorporate, of course. I wanted to, you know, the grand vision was to include everything a runner would want to know about this great race. So you really, you know, my initial first manuscript was over 450 pages. The final product that, you know, was published is 288 pages.

[00:11:15] So I had to really kind of be very careful about what I wanted to say and be very concise in saying it. So there are certain things that were mandatory, right? Like going through each town and the personality of each town that you traverse. There's eight of them as you move from Hopkinton to Boston. But there are certain things. I wanted the book to be incredibly playful, but reverent. I love the Boston Marathon. It's sacred to me.

[00:11:44] I don't make jokes for the sake of a joke. I want to make the book fun. So I included things like the Ten Commandments of Boston Marathon etiquette, ten charity running personas. There's a pre-race, but there's also very useful. There's a pre-race report card, which I think is incredibly useful. There's a checklist. There's so many things, so many elements that are fun. And my agent has a word for that.

[00:12:14] He says, you know, this book is, you know, no matter what page you open it to, it's engaging on the page. So I think that was important. To have that. You can just dive right in. And no matter where you dove into the book, you would have fun from the get-go.

[00:12:38] So having some of these things, these pop-up elements really, I think, adds to the reader's experience as they're kind of moving through the book. I have to agree 100%. It's kind of what keeps me engaged. As busy as we all are, I'm very guilty of getting a book and then putting it down within the first few chapters with all the good intentions.

[00:13:02] There's nothing wrong with the book, but it's just you get busy and then the book is great, but it didn't grab me enough to want to make the effort to have time away from everything else that we have got going on in life, right? But this one did just because it was written so differently. I want to maybe talk about the acknowledgements, right? Because that really spoke to me because you kind of have a sense of gratitude in there.

[00:13:27] And for the people that didn't read the book, the acknowledgements have 26 miles listed that acknowledge someone or something to be grateful for, which I think is the number one thing that we as runners need to be practicing rather than being down on ourselves. If we don't hit paces, we have to be grateful to whatever it is our bodies to move in order to even move forward with anything.

[00:13:54] Yeah, when I started to think through the acknowledgements, there were so many people, the Boston Marathon, and having done it now almost 20 years, so many people that I've met, really important people in my life that I've met along the way, that either A, contributed to this book, or B, in some way inspired this book. And I wanted to honor them. You know, a book is permanent, right? I'm going to die. Everybody in this book that I mentioned is going to die. And this book is going to live on. It's going to live in perpetuity.

[00:14:22] And I wanted to honor them in a way that they deserve, quite frankly. So I did it in a fun way, again, trying to get back to the whimsical nature of the book. And by the way, the thing that I forgot to mention about my agent's expression was he calls it multiple points of entry. So the book has multiple points of entry. And this, you know, this, the way that I did the acknowledgements, mile, you know, 26 to mile one, was fun for me.

[00:14:50] Because, listen, I've had friends that I ran, I'll give you one example. I ran in 2004, which was an 87 degree day with a gentleman, I won't mention his name, near and dear friend, who we ran for Mass General Hospital for cancer that particular year. And we ran together on the course until he actually went ahead of me because I just was bonking.

[00:15:16] And then I ended up passing him toward the end, unbeknownst to me, I didn't see him, but I ended up doing it. Got to know him even better and better, ran many races in the future. And the very cause that we raised money for in 2004 ended up killing him years later. So he died tragically of a very rare form of cancer. So it's stories like that. You have these experiences, you know, built up over time.

[00:15:42] And the Boston Marathon, one of the beauties of it, not just, this isn't just my experience, is its history, right? It's such a rich history, which makes the race not only special to a participant, but to the entire community, the entire running community and the entire city of Boston.

[00:16:04] It comes together in a way that creates this vibe, if you will, not only during the race, but during the entire weekend and having the race on a holiday on Monday makes it special. And the entire community, you know, shares in this celebration in a way that other cities just don't. Yeah, no, I agree with you. And that's kind of what made it very, a beautiful read.

[00:16:32] And a question that I had while I was reading it, while I was reading kind of through the historic part, I think it was chapter two, where you talk about certain individuals and stuff like that and the importance of Boston's history. What are your thoughts on the future of the Boston Marathon? Just because obviously these are things in history that already happened.

[00:16:54] And now it seems that this race is getting, you know, a little bit more competitive, a little bit of a backlash, having the sponsor being swapped out with Bank of America. And Bank of America, you know, you've seen the memes on Instagram with Bank of America. This is the Bank of America race rather than the previous sponsors. What are your thoughts on the development of the Boston Marathon and whether it can stay special the way it was?

[00:17:24] Wow. This is a fantastic question. We could talk about this for hours. My first gut reaction is this, and that is, you know, this is a balancing act that the BAA who created this race and organizes this race and manages this race has to deal with. And I do not envy them. Right.

[00:17:48] They have to make so many different stakeholders, whether it's towns, elite runners, charity runners, sponsors. It just the list goes on and on. They have to make them all happy or try to. Right. And you're never going to make them all happy. So this this the future and, you know, that the future is going to be very interesting. I think every year and every day they have to deal with that. And I think they're listening really, really well.

[00:18:18] They've made changes. Right. This used to be an all male race. Right. Back when it started, you know, women didn't arrive on the scene until officially 72 and unofficially 66. And, you know, other people would argue that it was, you know, a very much a white race and runs through the white towns of Boston and things like that.

[00:18:46] And there are a lot of ways to look at the Boston Marathon and its history and poke holes in errors that they made and say it has to change. And I think it's changing in a lot of good ways. You know, you could go from wheelchair racing to to women participating, to non-binary participation, to seeing more charity teams that are diverse in a lot of different ways.

[00:19:15] I think it's also important, though, to honor the history. What makes Boston special? And there's a lot of things. But the history we could talk about, you know, for hours is incredibly important. And I don't think you want to stray too far away from that because then it turns into something that's going to look a lot like other races and it loses some of its magic, quite frankly.

[00:19:41] So I think going forward, we will continue to see changes. I think those changes will come perhaps in some people's minds, not as quickly as they'd prefer. But I think the BAA is always listening, always tweaking things, always trying to make it better. And I think their heart's in the right place. And I think that's the most important thing. And we're seeing we're seeing those changes literally on a yearly basis now. Yes.

[00:20:08] And I have to agree with you fully, knowing a few of the people on the board of the BAA. And then also the fact that we've seen it all, right? Everyone that works in the running space, the influx of runners that we now have that we did not have before. It's nobody's fault that people are inevitably training better, having better shoes and running faster than before, applying for more races. So it's not anything that comes from a bad place.

[00:20:36] I think they're just trying to do their best to deal with it all. And luckily for us, we have people like you helping runners. So maybe you can talk a little bit about what aspects in your book help a runner when it comes to getting in, Chapter 3. Oh, getting in. Yeah. You know, people think that there are two ways to get in and those two ways are to qualify. Right.

[00:21:03] And that's on a yearly basis, roughly 80 percent of the field. And then to run for charity, which in this day and age means raising upwards of $10,000 and more for a specific nonprofit organization. And that's the other 20 percent of the field. The reality is it's a little different. You know, there are other side doors or windows into the race. Sponsors giving you bibs.

[00:21:28] Members of government, you know, in the Boston area have access to bibs. So bibs, having lived here in Boston for 25 years, bibs kind of float around in a way. And you hear about them because you have friends, you know, closely associated with the race.

[00:21:49] So if you're not qualified and you're looking to get in, there are certainly ways to stack the odds in your favor in any given year. On the flip side of that, if you are looking to qualify, you know, there are some interesting ways where you can also stack the odds in your favor. So to qualify for Boston, it just has to be a certified course.

[00:22:16] And that course could be a course like some of these rebel races out west where you literally run down the side of a mountain. So you're going in the case of, say, Rebel Big Bear, you're going down 5,000 feet from point to point. And that's going to help your chances to get a BQ for the for the upcoming year. And it's getting more difficult, right?

[00:22:43] You know, Boston, it's no longer you just have to qualify, but you have to qualify with a buffer. So let's say you are on the cusp and you ran Chicago and you, you know, barely missed a BQ or you BQ'd with a minus, you know, a minute, minus a minute and a half. You're probably not going to get into the next year's Boston. But if you took those legs that just ran, you know, a minute and a half faster than your BQ at Chicago and you went to a rebel race out west,

[00:23:11] you could perhaps find another 10 minutes, 15 minutes even to get that BQ that you're looking for. So, you know, I think there are. If if you want to run Boston bad enough, I think there are multiple ways to do it. You just have to be a little wily in the way you go about it. Yeah. So good luck to everybody.

[00:23:36] I mean, I know it's a it's a difficult task and I know that I know that downhill races are not for everyone. Some of us, I mean, I achieved off 15 minutes on my time without even training. And I know that others, you know, your quads will just destroy you. I think it has just kind of it's almost like your body's preference of whether it deals well with that. But yeah, I mean, I've heard of brands giving out bibs and other ways.

[00:24:05] Of course, that's really hard to come by for any of us. But keep your eyes open and keep good karma going, I guess. Yeah, I think, you know, we're seeing some negative things happen with influencers and things like that, where, you know, we saw one particular influencer in New York who was banned for life from the New York City Marathon or any, you know, New York Roadrunners race.

[00:24:30] And the BAA has been known and has a reputation to be strict as well. And they should be, quite frankly. You know, I say I said earlier that the Boston Marathon is sacred to me. It's sacred to a lot of people. Right. So you're really compromising the integrity of the race if you're not doing it by the book. And some of the things that we described, like getting a sponsor to give you a bib, these are real things that are happening now.

[00:24:59] They're good. I think that's good. I think if too many are given away, then that's getting, you're leaning into, you know, starting to, you know, damage what this race is all about. But I do think it is good to have some sponsors and some brands that have access to bibs to get people into the race that otherwise wouldn't be able to participate. Yes. I mean, kind of like you said, it could go either ways, right? Because then how fairly are people being picked?

[00:25:29] And, you know, you're not going to get your average runner with that. You're getting that because the brand wants to work with this certain influencer or whatever this person is. And so, I mean, I guess, you know, that exists in every level, not just running. It's in the government. It's everywhere. So, hopefully, you know, people just with everything out there, the nutrition and the training and the knowledge about working out and strength training and rest and shoes,

[00:25:57] hopefully people will just be able to get faster and make their dreams happen also. But, I mean, that's always a difficult talking point, right? Yeah, I think getting into Boston, because the race is revered around the world, it's such a big thing.

[00:26:23] I found, you know, digging into the community, the running community locally and also online is really helpful. You know, I'm obviously very immersed in the Boston running community and also a little bit in New York. But I found that online, it's incredible what exists online.

[00:26:47] And you'll be in a Facebook group, you know, related to the Boston Marathon, and you'll have access to information in those groups. You know, people all over the world are talking about the race and their experience, and you can glean a lot of information from them in short order. So, I think if I were interested in the Boston Marathon, I had never done it before, I would not only get a good book, like the Boston Marathon handbook,

[00:27:15] but I would, you know, get online and I would surf around and I would find some of these communities to amp up my knowledge, for sure. Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more about those, obviously the good book, but also the Facebook groups. I've myself found some gems on there, how to get hotel rooms right by the finish line without having to pay an arm and a leg. I mean, at the same time, you're still paying a premium, but you're not paying the, you know,

[00:27:41] thousand dollar nights like they have them right before the Boston Marathon, etc. But yeah. So with that, let's talk a little bit about, you've kind of already alluded to it, you are going through all the cities in one of your chapters, which that is a great race. I mean, great read because you get to see more than you will on race day. On race day, when your mind is exhausted, it kind of all blends together. But I think it's really cool.

[00:28:10] I wish I would have read that before I ran the Boston Marathon because then I would have been like, oh, you know, here's Farmingham, which this is what Farmingham is about. Framingham. Yes, it's Framingham. Sorry. Yeah, no, I had a blast writing that.

[00:28:34] So those readers that haven't read the book, there are eight towns that you traverse, right? You start in this pastoral town in Hopkinton and you end up traversing these other towns to get to downtown Boston and Copley Square, to be precise. And it is really another thing that makes Boston unique is it is that point to point journey. And each of these towns that you traverse has a really unique personality.

[00:29:04] And I wanted to get some of that personality into these chapters in a way that has never been done before. Dathan Ritzenheim has a quote in the book. There's a lot of great runners contributed quotes to this book. I love Dathan's quote because he talks about just what I described, this pastoral town. You're literally going past farms with cows. And then you're getting closer as you get closer and closer to Boston.

[00:29:34] Your landscape starts changing. You'll begin to see Natick, which has a little tiny town center. Then you'll see Wellesley, Wellesley College. And then you'll go past graveyards in Newton and these gorgeous, beautiful hills in Newton with these beautiful homes lining the streets. And then as you get to Brookline, you have these brownstones that you start to see for the first time. You know you're getting closer to Boston.

[00:29:59] And then as you turn into Boston, you truly get this Boston vibe with these gorgeous brownstones and these weird streets with different one-way streets. And then, of course, some taller buildings that make it look city-like. So you're just transported. That's probably the right word. You're transported. I've run Chicago. I've run New York City. I've run many sleepy little smaller marathons. Nothing feels like Boston.

[00:30:29] Nothing feels like that point-to-point journey that you take. And it's not just the physical landscape that changes. The complexion of and the personalities of the people lining the course change. And I speak to that as well. The people that you see in Ashland are very different than the people you're going to see in Brookline that are cheering for you. Yeah, it's a great read. It's very entertaining.

[00:30:59] At the same time, you also hit on more serious points. You know, anything from training to pre-race stuff, including the weather and then taper, goal setting, how to run it. Like you mentioned earlier, the Ten Commandments, which are really cool. And then you kind of concluded on crossing the finish line. And then there was a chapter called Now What? And then Beyond Boston.

[00:31:25] So tell us a little bit about that, because we all know that the marathon blues are something that's real. We feel like we've done this race and now what, right? Because if you have gotten into Boston one time doesn't mean you're going to get into it again. So tell us, Mark, now what? Yeah, wow. That's a very real question in my life right now for a lot of reasons. But first things first. Yeah, I think once you finish any marathon, you're going to come down off that high,

[00:31:53] if you will, certainly at Boston, because it is you when I say it's a high at Boston, it's probably as high as you're going to get as a runner. And you do have these post-race blues that are real. It is almost like a depression. And some people it affects more than others. But it's something what you have to deal with. And the question is, you know, what are you going to do next? Right. So what's going to get that feeling back?

[00:32:21] Some people will plot their next race. You know, most people that talk to me, they're like, oh, well, you've done 19 of them. This is going to be 20. So this must be old hat and easy for you. And the answer is no, it's not. You know, I almost want to say it's more difficult each passing year to make the decision whether I'm going to run or not and whether my body is going to be able to pull it off. So what?

[00:32:49] And then, you know, I'm also looking a little bit in the future where, you know, maybe just maybe I won't be able to run Boston anymore. And what is next for a lot of people? What is next? And I think there are a lot of directions you could go. Right. You could do another sport. You could play pickleball. You could certainly keep running. You could change up what you're doing. You know, there's many different surfaces. Right. You can go to the trails. There's many different distances. You don't have to run a marathon anymore.

[00:33:18] You can run shorter races or you could go in the opposite direction, say I'm done with marathons and now I want to tackle an ultra. So and then the other thing is, you know, as you age up, your PRs typically are in the rearview mirror. So or, you know, as they say, PB in Europe. But you're no longer going to be able to run as fast as you did in your youth. What do you do? Right.

[00:33:46] If that is what was driving you, then I would suggest you look into dominating your age group because you will then race against your peers. Or even better, I talk about this in the book as well. You can do, you know, age graded racing, which allows you to take whatever time you have when you're 80 years old and compare that time very accurately to a time that you ran when you were 22.

[00:34:13] And there's an entire, you know, calculation to do that. It's fascinating, quite frankly. And you can actually compare your time. Let's say I'm, you know, I am 58 and I had a 58 year old friend who, you know, ran a 10K in Utah and I ran a marathon here in Boston and he was bragging to me, oh, my race is far better than your race. Well, that sounds it's arbitrary, right? But it's not.

[00:34:42] You can actually put those two races into the calculator, age graded calculator, and you can determine whose percentage is higher or not, and there will be a winner. So I think there's so many things you can do after Boston. And I'm at the point in my running career where I'm thinking through a lot of these things and also thinking about my health. And a lot of people will end up doing this a little bit more holistically, right?

[00:35:10] So I arrived at this via having played college baseball, and it was really in my DNA, as I said earlier, to train for something. Well, I could do that with something else. And in fact, I've actually picked up tennis in a pretty serious way. I love different things. So I'm writing a book, a second book now, that's pretty close to getting a deal done that I'm really excited about that I can't talk about.

[00:35:36] But it is related to that journey of what's next. And I'll share more details when we talk next. Hopefully, we'll get a copy of that book, and then we'll bring you back on. Oh, yeah. We'll do that. Definitely. Thank you, Mark, so much. And obviously, we'll link everything that has to do with your book on our platform. And then if you want to just let our listeners know how they can find you best if they want to contact you. Sure.

[00:36:06] The easiest way is just to go right to my website, which is mark, M-A-R-C-W-Polina.com. It's my writing book. So I have a blog there that has a lot of information on the Boston Marathon, a lot of podcasts. This one will be there as well. That is the easiest way, and it also has links to how to get in contact with me, whether it's email or otherwise. So that is probably the easiest way.

[00:36:31] I would also encourage you to, if you love the book and you've read the book, to review it on Amazon or on Goodreads and also to connect with me. I am on social media. I do a lot of my running posts on Instagram. I'm also on Facebook. Reach out to me. I'd love to hear from you and connect in ways beyond this podcast. Absolutely. And then when they see you in Boston, they can say hi.

[00:37:01] No, I love that. The expo and the Boston experience is so special. And runners are just so friendly. They're such a convivial community, right? So absolutely. I am all over the expo. I'm all over the streets of Newberry, or Newberry Street, which is where a lot of the pop-up stores are. So seek me out. I am there. And if you don't see me, I may see you. And I'd love to sign your book and personalize it for you if you bring it with you.

[00:37:31] So I would love to do that. Perfect, Mark. Thank you so much. Thank you, Leti. My pleasure. Thank you, Mark, for speaking with me. That was very awesome. I appreciate your time. And like I said to you listeners, if you are interested in checking out this book and get it right before Boston, you can do so. I'm going to link it in the show notes.

[00:37:57] But if you're running and you can't check out the show notes, you can check it out. It's The Boston Marathon Handbook by Mark Polina. Very easy. You can find it on Amazon and everywhere else. So what do we have in store next week? So next week, we're going to talk to an elite runner about the reality of sponsorships. Sponsorships. Sponsorships? Sponsorships.

[00:38:22] The reality being, you know, kind of obviously not that great, especially running, right? If you compare running and how much people train for it and everything to a sport like, I don't know. I don't know anything about football. But if you were to compare it to football. They do a lot of training for football. Right. But look at the different pay grade level. Yes. It's ridiculous, especially given that, for example, the Olympic athletes or Olympic marathon qualifiers had a post-op before they went to Paris.

[00:38:48] Kind of almost fundraising for that trip, which I thought was outrageous that they had to do that. Yeah, I think with all the sports that are the mainstream sports, unless you're very, very top, you're not making much money. And even the top racers, I don't know how much they're making. Exactly. Unless you're living in a different country where that money will go further. But we can talk about that next week. All right. So that's it for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you are watching this, which I don't know how many people will actually watch this on YouTube.

[00:39:17] But if you are, thank you so much. Check out our other videos. I do tons of shoe reviews, vlogs, etc. This is just kind of part of the channel now. Right. So that's it. And with that, have a great week of running. Or check us out on all channels. Bye.