Jess K. '10 | May 14, 2008
"Boston Marathon '08"
[edited 05/14 after first posted at 2 AM; corrected by Clara '10. Thanks a lot!]
I read the blogs a lot as a prefrosh. And sometimes, one or three of the bloggers would drop off the face of the earth for a little while, and I would look down at their page over my absurdly high nose and think, "PSHHH."
"Pshhhhh," I would think. "If I had the honor of being an MIT blogger, I would not post as sparsely as a Donald Trump's hair. I would post every day, about classes and my terrible eating habits and the way the trees look from my dorm room and exactly how long it takes me to tie my shoes in the morning. There is no EXCUSE!"
I have no excuse. It's been a month and a week since I last posted. And it's not for lack of material, either (it takes me 6.2 seconds to tie my shoes). I've got the Boston Marathon, Ring Delivery, AXO Lip Sync, the Burton Conner cruise, Dance Troupe, and the last study break we had in which we drank milkshakes while listening to Kelis under a sign labeled "THE YARD". I have all of that, and still it's been a month because I've been either hosed, or just kickin it in the sunshine out in Killian Court, or eating whipped cream out of a can.. or some combination of the three.
So I'll start from the beginning: marathon day. Every year the American Red Cross invites a handful of MIT EMTs to come work the aid stations through the chief of our service, and so on April 21st I got up at a ridiculous hour to watch people go do ridiculous things.
I'd never seen a marathon before, let alone the Boston Marathon, so it was a pretty exciting day. The wheelchairs are released about an hour before the runners, then the elite women, then elite men, then everyone else.
"Everyone else" doesn't really adequately describe the incredible sight of 20,000+ people on their way to running 26 miles, which included a huge variety of people from all walks of life, from college students to grandparents to amputees to a woman who was 14 weeks pregnant (and stopped in to use our aid station's restroom). It also included a couple hundred bandit runners, who haven't officially registered for the marathon (there are a couple barriers to entry, such as the ridiculous qualifying time of a little over 3 hours, or a small fee) and therefore do not wear numbered bibs. Bandit runners themselves include completely serious 26-mile-runners to the costumed 2-mile-walkers:
Around mid-day the runners had all passed through, and so we packed up and headed to the very last aid station to hang out with more colorful runners:
We were having a pretty chill time at the last station - at that point, most of the runners were basically finished- when all of a sudden, Jon Wu '06 sat up and yelled, "IT'S BAKER HOUSE!"
MIT had a pretty consistent presence, actually, including Bryan '07 and a few others:
As EMTs, we handed out vaseline for chafing and sprayed a lot of calves with cramp spray, as well as treated more serious patients. It was good practice, and I got to deal with things we don't normally see on the ambulance, like hypernatremia.
So okay, this entry is pretty overdue, and it's maybe not one of the best on MITBlogs, but they can't all be winners. I just found that entry last night and watched the video about eight times, and I feel like bringing it back completely makes up for all of my recent absence. Again, I apologize, and I may or may not be back before finals, but whatever happens - my deprotonated heart will love you.
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Responses To This Entry:
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My milkshake brings all the boys to the-oh, gotcha. Hahaha.
Posted by: Sam on May 14, 2008 02:57 AM
what the hell is cramp spray!?
/
yeah, this entry is pretty overdue, i'd say. It's nice to see a post!
Posted by: Jeff on May 14, 2008 08:59 AM
Cramp spray?!?!?! There's actually stuff to relax muscles under the stress of lactic acid?!?!!?
Posted by: Judy '12 on May 14, 2008 09:22 AM
Cramp Spray is for the French.
Real Men eat a steak when their legs cramp up, that's what I did. I cooked it using only body heat from my competitors.
Posted by: Chuck Norris on May 14, 2008 12:10 PM
Hi Erica and Gwen!
Posted by: Photon on May 14, 2008 12:32 PM
@ Chuck Norris
The Real Chuck Norris doesn't get cramps.... he cramps other people :P
Posted by: Judy '12 on May 14, 2008 03:02 PM
Cramp spray exists?!?
Posted by: Anonymous on May 14, 2008 03:52 PM
Cramp spray? For realio? Kamber, my birthday is only 8 months away. Also, could you remind me and the vast MITblog community what you're doing this summer, again?
Posted by: Sam on May 14, 2008 05:04 PM
Sorry to be posting this unrelated information here. I would appreciate if you could repost this under a new blog topic.
This morning when watching Fox news, I saw an interesting interview with Geoffrey Maltzahn of MIT regarding a cancer breakthough. The video is available at :http://www.foxnews.com/americasnewsroom/index.html
Scroll down the page and look for the video icon with the following textual description:
"Cancer Breakthrough
Researchers tout major advance in cancer treatment using tiny devices called 'nanoworms'"
I think this video will be available on the fox news website only for today (5/14/08)until 12 midnight.
Posted by: Ram - a parent on May 14, 2008 07:02 PM
You're an EMT? Nice. When did you train?
Posted by: Melissa on May 15, 2008 01:43 AM
I didn't know that there was a fun part to the Boston Marathon...:)
I like Baker's costumes. And Caine's shirt rocks pretty comprehensively. Bully and most "able," Sir Caine.
Posted by: E. Rosser '12 on May 15, 2008 09:42 AM
Thank you so much for your last post with pictures of Burton 1. It was influential in helping me convince my mom to expand her list of bearable dorms to more than just McCormick. ^_^
Posted by: Yuzhi '12 on May 18, 2008 05:20 PM
It's exerciting to know something about life in a foreign country.I happen to read this blog,and hope to make friends with foreigners.Well,it may be radicurous.But who knows there can't be miracle?(Sorry for my poor English~)hehe~
Posted by: qiubinlin on May 19, 2008 04:59 AM
My e-mail:linqiubin1988@hotmail.com
and I major in biology engineering.
Posted by: qiubinlin on May 19, 2008 05:03 AM
You need to post more so I can be distracted from studying for finals for longer periods of time :)
Posted by: Ting on May 20, 2008 12:30 PM
