60 minutes rewind
eight days from now a million people are expected to line the streets of
boston to watch 36 000 runners compete in the world's oldest and most prestigious marathon
the memory of the bombings near the finish line of last year's boston marathon is still fresh
and next week the race promises to be unlike any other in its 117 year history a chance for
the city to come together and reclaim a beloved tradition that was torn apart by an act of terror
there hasn't been an american winner male or female of the boston marathon in almost 30 years
kenyan and ethiopian runners now dominate the sport but this year an american woman
named shalane flanagan has a very real chance of winning the 26 mile race she's only 5 foot 4 and
102 pounds but don't be fooled she's been called a ponytailed assassin in knee socks
she also happens to have grown up in boston which makes her next week's hometown favorite
maybe it's just a bostonian thing but i was really genuinely just pissed off that someone would
ruin such a what is such a celebratory day and a historical moment um with that kind of action you
were angry so i was angry i was really pissed off that um that someone would would do this it's like
it uh it was a personal attack to my city shalene flanagan has been running in her city since she
was a teenager she grew up in marblehead a nearby suburb although she lives in portland oregon now
she frequently returns to boston to train along the marathon route
it's my ultimate dream and goal to win the boston marathon i am all in with this training i have
been out on the course training on it multiple times this fall and i know almost every divot
and bump in the road the boston marathon has been a part of shalene flanagan's life since she was a
child both her parents were marathon runners her father ran 11 minutes off world record
pace at the boston marathon in 1980 her mother set a women's world marathon record in 1971. i
thought everyone's parents ran i thought everyone got up and went to the you know sunday long run
um you thought everybody's parents yeah i thought it was like church of sunday long run every church
of some day long that's what my dad would call it long before she ever thought of running the
boston marathon shalane used to stand near the finish line of the race to cheer her father on
i watched from hereford all the way down to the finish and that's exactly the two areas where
the bombs went off so it was a surreal moment to think of that was i was a little kid watching my
my dad run right there i mean that easily could have been me or my sister when the bombs exploded
last year three people were killed 264 others were injured the youngest victim was eight-year-old
martin richard to see the young bodies lying me on boylston street it's something that i'll
never get out of my mind william evans is the new boston police commissioner he's also a competitive
runner last year's marathon was the 18th he'd run in boston to have just come down that street an
hour earlier with such excitement such joy and then to return again it i just didn't believe
that that could happen on boylston street in the city of boston commissioner evans wanted to
run again this year but decided he should stay in the command post to oversee security you're going
to see 36 000 people on that course with the same principle let's prove that we won't be intimidated
by what happened back in april the race this year for a great many people will be about that it will
be seen as a response to terror as a statement of resilience tom grillick is the executive director
of the boston athletic association which has organized the marathon throughout its long history
the event will go forward as what it has always been both an athletic competition focused on
excellence and a celebration around here of a great event in our community this year he
believes more spectators than ever will be on the streets cheering on the runners they want to take
part they want to take part if you're out there as a spectator and somebody comes along and their
t-shirt says carly on it a thousand people along the way will say go collie and everybody will have
a good time carly will suddenly have thousands of new friends collie will look wicked happy
most runners in next week's marathon will just be happy to finish or reach a personal best
but for chelane flanagan and the other top runners the goal is winning the race is as much
about strategy and psychology as it is physical conditioning obviously marathons are painful but
for you it's about being able to deal with pain yourself and also inflict pain on others
that's part of strategy yes um you know when i start to feel fairly uncomfortable it's it's
all about embracing it and realizing it's inevitable embracing embracing it yes so if
i'm uncomfortable i usually know my competitors are uncomfortable if they're straggling behind
that's kind of the time when i say i'm going to put the screw in i can tell that they're
either struggling mentally or physically so i'm going to just push it and just see if i can break
them this is going to sound like an odd question but do you like inflicting pain on your opponents
um i think everyone who's got a competitive bone in their body it to a certain degree enjoy seeing
a little bit some of the uh having their competition fall apart when chilean started
running in high school there wasn't much strategy to her racing i would run so hard
that i would literally make myself collapse i've heard you refer to it as kamikaze racing
yeah i mean it's kamikazes don't end up very well i know um but sometimes it could be brilliant
shalane was a champion cross country runner in college and won a bronze medal in the 10 000
meter race at the beijing olympics but to compete in the marathon she needed to learn a whole new
way to run in 2009 at the age of 28 chilean moved to portland oregon and began working
with coach jerry schumacher so we're going to pull two loops which is a little over 24 miles
and prepping her to learn how to run 26 miles without blowing yourself up which
she had never done before which yeah because she likes to go out and she likes to suffer and
in a marathon if you're suffering at mile three you're probably not going to finish all right good
running is shalane's full-time job she's sponsored by nike which allows her to focus
solely on training for the boston marathon she often runs twice a day up to 120 miles a week
in addition to lifting weights she has to rigorously monitor everything she eats food
is fuel but she doesn't want to gain any extra weight she'll have to carry in the marathon
watching shalane and other top marathoners compete it's easy to forget just how fast and how far
they're running last year's female winner of the boston marathon kenyan rita jeptu closed her final
mile at a pace of four minutes and 50 seconds to finish a marathon running at four minutes and 50
seconds per mile that's incredible it's incredible after 25 miles of running you have to be ready
even if it takes just that last mile you know to do whatever you got to do whatever it takes
to get in that finish line yeah to get a sense of just how fast chalene runs during a marathon
we decided to try to keep up with her on a race track at nike headquarters where she trains this
is like a real race this is a real race shalane would run a quarter mile at her marathon race pace
and i would run as fast as i could trying to stay with her so you're going to go for your
marathon pace yes and i'm going to see if you like that pace jerry started us off ready set go
i jumped out front at first but within a few seconds shalane with her even pace and
easy flowing stride that god blew right past me laughing all the way
she completed the quarter mile in about 79 seconds almost there
oh my god keep in mind that to complete a marathon you'd have to run that distance a hundred and
four more times did you feel me suffering out there did you hear those giggles that was pure
giggling chalene's first marathon was in 2010 in new york city remarkably she came in
second behind kenyon edna kiplight and it's shalane flanagan completing the 26.2 miles
in two hours and 28 minutes it was the best finish by an american woman in new york
in 20 years what did that tell you she can run the 26 miles she can do the training for it and in the
right kind of race she's going to be definitely dangerous the story will continue after this
last year chalene ran the boston marathon for the first time early in the race she and the other top
women were running six minute miles a relatively slow pace when kenya's rita jeptu finally picked
up the pace in the last few miles shelaine's legs couldn't keep up boston has this really
fun way of trashing your quads as much as you tell your legs to respond and to pop off the ground and
like as much as you want it spiritually and mentally if your legs don't have it they don't
have it you can't there's nothing you can do like i try to talk to them like legs you have to keep
moving you have to turn over you need to be coming and giving me more energy but if it's not there
it's not there it's not much you can do you're actually talking to your legs oh yeah i have talks
with them yeah i look at my quads i'm like come on you can do this and so i mean no one do they
respond no they're usually like hey screw you you know we've been running for a long time chilean
finished fourth and after the bombings was the first runner to sign up again to compete this year
for the past 12 months she's been focused on this one race memorizing the marathon route in boston
running long distances in portland and running at high altitude in the mountains of arizona
all of it every mile dedicated to returning to boston in peak form and winning the marathon to
you winning the boston marathon would be bigger than winning an olympic medal yeah you could say
here slain you have an olympic medal or you could win the boston marathon a no-brainer to me would
be winning the boston marathon why it is personal it's where my inspiration started it's where i
fell in love with running what would it mean if a local person someone from boston won the women's
race it would be super it would it would just signify how resilient this community is and how
hard someone would train to make sure this was special for everyone so we'll go crazy the people
who line the road know certainly know any local runner who is there so they will all know shalane
do you think they're going to be a lot of people on the sidelines during first chilling i think
there will be a great many people on the sidelines cheering for shalane go chelane go marblehead
she'll need all the support she can get last year's winner rita geptu will also be running
again next week is rita jeff too beatable i believe so anyone is beatable you know rita
jeptu is phenomenal athlete and i really admire her but i know that on any given day i can beat
her beating rita geptu and her other opponents may come down to personal motivation shlain's anger
and heartbreak over what happened in boston last year it's probably not a day that goes by that
i don't think about the events unfolded there did that add to your desire to run this year
absolutely after what happened with the bombs and everything that unfolded it just gave
more meaning and more incentive to pour everything i have into winning it a few months ago we
accompanied chilean on one of her final practice runs along the boston marathon course despite
all her rigorous training a constant study of the physiology and psychology of running when it comes
to the boston marathon shalene flanagan isn't immune to a little superstition i don't cross it
as many times as you practiced in boston leading up to this race as many times as you've
run on the actual course you have yet to actually cross the finish line i've only crossed the
finish line once last year last year during the race yes and i haven't done it in practice no
so i'll save that for the day for the real race