BOSTON — Even at the two-hour mark, the leaderboard in the women’s division of Monday’s Boston Marathon resembled a Green Line car pulling out of Park Street during the morning rush.
Twelve women were packed in a tight, jostling pack, and yet there was a oneness to it all, all those elbows, all those knees, moving as if choreographed. You’ll see these kinds of groupings at the starting line. You’ll see them in 5K’s. You just don’t see this many world-class runners sharing an elevator at the two-hour mark of a marathon.
But then there were only two runners. And then, one. That’s when Hellen Obiri of Kenya broke away from the pack, and then she broke away from countrywoman Sharon Lokedi, crossing the finish line in 2:22:37 to win Boston for a second straight time.
GO DEEPER
Boston Marathon: Lemma wins men’s race
What a finish. What a day. For while many of the half-million fans who attended the 128th Boston Marathon on this warm, sun-splashed day were mainly there for the tradition and pageantry of it all — and to cheer on their friends who were competing as cause-driven “charity runners” — this edition of the Hopkinton-to-Copley Square road race had so much more. It had mid-marathon drama. It had an upset. And it had that steel-cage match of a women’s…
