“Marathon Monday.” These two words ring a bell in every BC kid’s head when they are said. The wheels begin to churn and the adrenaline accumulates. Memories are nudged out of storage, and finally, after the thought process has awakened, out filters the smoke of realization and conclusion. “Marathon Monday. Best day of the academic year at BC, EVER. No exceptions,” is the automatic quote that comes, almost too overheard, out of every overzealous student’s mouth, yet every time with a different squeak of excitement. But…
And yes there is a ‘but’, remarkably.
The idea behind Marathon Monday’s ‘greatness’ and placement as #1 on the pedestal of amazing college days is that it is the perfect, absolutely perfect, excuse to ‘party’ on a Monday. Okay, so what? Well the fact of the matter is that this so-called ‘party’ begins at 8 a.m., and for some even earlier. For others, it’s just a continuation of their already exceptionally long weekend and of Sunday night. Again you ask yourself, what is the problem with this?
The problem is that on top it being highly unhealthy to be drinking four days in a row, or for some even 5 days (if you include ‘thirsty’ Thursday), it just seems plain ridiculous to be getting up earlier than one would for classes on a normal day, to drink excessive amounts of alcohol in order to be sufficiently inebriated to cheer on the marathon runners. The entire day is just an attack on every student’s health, drinkers and runners alike (ever heard of the phrase ‘hitting the wall’ on Heartbreak Hill?).
Furthermore, there is another point to factor in: sleep. The average BC student probably doesn’t sleep more than six hours on a good week night, either way you’re definitely not getting to bed before midnight. On weekends the entire situation changes, regardless of whether you party hard or just have a chill session with some friends, to probably not more than five hours a night because on top of the partying, you have homework and school assignments to do. And who wants to spend all weekend in bed anyway? So my point here is that by Monday, the average BC student hasn’t had nearly enough sleep for the challenge that he or she is about to undertake at eight a.m. Let’s be honest, who actually stayed until the last group of marathoners went by? I stayed until about four p.m., when the sidewalks went from what seemed like a mosh-pit to a deserted beach with a few groups of people wondering what they were still doing there. By four p.m. I knew I was ready to crash for a three-hour nap.
Not only is the idea of excessive drinking so early in the morning insane, but it is also an obscene display of the college life, one that shouldn’t be exemplified at family and public events, such as the Boston Marathon. It is well known by all marathoners that the best part of running the race is just after Heartbreak Hill, where all the BC fans are awaiting to cheer on fellow BC students, along with every other person running the Marathon. However, has anyone ever thought to put two and two together and allude to the fact that perhaps there lies a reason behind this over-energetic cheering besides our amazing sense of school spirit? Let’s investigate, oh wait, there’s no need to investigate. It’s pretty obvious that alcohol takes action in these types of situations, making its host over-emotional and out of control of his or her actions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we only cheer because we’re drunk, I’m just saying it does factor to some extent. And it just doesn’t seem like a very ethical thing to do at a community-wide event where there will naturally be people of all types, including police officers and children: it’s a public display of substance abuse, for the most part by under-aged college teens.
Alright, so I’ve been bashing on the students. But I must include that there were many a bottle lying around…in the hands of the non-college student marathon watchers. On top of our display of alcoholism, the public didn’t really help. Shall we rename Marathon Monday to Drink-Yourself-Silly Day?
Enough about alcoholism. There’s another con to Marathon Monday, and in conjunction with Earth Day that just recently passed, it has to do with the environment. Walking along Commonwealth Ave the very next day told a very sad but truthful story of the destruction of the environment. The muddy road curbs, the empty plastic bottles, and the enormous piles and piles of green cardboard cups where the water stations were established the day before: all was a sad sight. By all means trash yourself, it’s your shoulders that will bear the consequences, but don’t trash the environment because that burden not only lies on our own already weighed down hearts but on those of our children as well. It just seems like a bad way to end an otherwise seemingly flawless sunny day.
In the end, it seems that trashing in general, whether it be yourself or the environment, is just downright not legitimate. It just isn’t. And there you have it: the drawbacks of Marathon Monday. Just think: correct these wrongs, and Marathon Monday will truly be the ‘AWESOMEST’ day of the year.
