Bandits, can’t live with ‘em, can’t shoot ‘em. Actually, at Boston this year,I met two of the nicest Bostonians while waiting around in the staging area. They gave me lots of good advice. Just when they were calling us to the starting corrals, they both said “well, gotta go find my place to jump in the race”. I didn’t realize it until then, they were both Boston Bandits. I don’t have a problem with them as long as they don’t cross the finish line (& if chip timed, who cares if they do). They don’t get listed in the results, don’t get a shirt or medal. They can’t even prove they ran the whole race. They miss out on so much, why try to penalize them more. Running is for everyone, even “criminals”.

I dislike Bandits as well but im totally realistic in understanding there is nothing that we are going to be able to do about it. Its one of those things where you just have to live with it and move onwards.

Crash

Catching up on podcasts, so this is a little late…

Bandits are kind of like people in front of me in line. I can’t do much about them and I just hope there are as few as possible.

Similar to Tom, I met a guy running Richmond in 2007 who was running in his first registered marathon — he had run Boston several times as a college student. That made me stop to think a bit … hmm, college student (aka poor) - loves running enough to take on the topography of the Boston course, but chooses to pay for books … I’ve got no problem with it. I suppose he could have run the course on a different day (there’s a group that does it on Jan 1 - right) … but if I use my imagination just a bit and suppose that running as a bandit in Boston keeps him passionate about the sport — I say bring on the bandits, but please keep them out of “support” the registered and paying runners bought with the bib.