When you live in or around Boston, everyone watches The Marathon on Marathon Monday. And where you watch becomes a proud tradition among friends and families. Eventually, Boston Marathon streakers remember where you cheer year after year.
I grew up watching the Boston Marathon in Natick, specifically at mile 10.3 on the left hand side of the course. My siblings, parents, several cousins, and aunts and uncles would set up chairs along the sidewalk of a small shopping plaza, home to a Li’l Peach convenience store, which my uncle Stephen owned.
We’d charge into the store, our hands clenching dollar bills, scanning the aisles we knew all too well for the perfect race-day treats. On school holidays our uncle let us work in the store—never on Marathon Monday though—and we’d tag items with a price gun, stock the fridge with sodas and water, and help cash in lottery tickets. A day’s work left us flush with a $5 bill, and of course, a snack of our choice (blue Doritos for me).
The plaza that housed the Li’l Peach was also home to a handful of other small businesses. And on the corner was a Friendly’s ice cream restaurant. It’s now a Dunkin’ Donuts. Well, now now it’s a Dunkin’.
On Marathon Monday we’d settle into our spots, and if my mom’s uncle was running, we’d have orange slices at the ready. Huna Rosenfeld was the captain of the Harvard cross-country team in the 1940s, and he ran eight Boston Marathons, the first when he was 68 years old (4:27:05). I was just shy of 7 years old that year. He ran the 100th running in 1996—I remember the buzz that year about the milestone race. And he last ran in 2001 at the age of 75 (5:55:46).
The Li’l Peach watch spot is nestled between two large church steeples in Natick. The course is flat and we always had a good view; in more heavily populated areas of the course, the crowd is four, five, six-people deep. At the Li'l Peach, runners weren’t too dogged yet, and if they were, you knew they were in trouble. They knew they were in trouble.
My elementary and middle school self never considered that I would one day become a runner and run my hometown race, as a charity runner and then as a qualifier. But the first time I ran the sacred race, in 2013, I looked left as I approached the Friendly’s-turned-Dunkin’ and saw my uncle, the once owner of the Li’l Peach. This time he was cheering for me.
The Boston Marathon holds a special place in my heart for a lot of reasons. But the Li’l Peach watch spot is about more than the 129-year-old race. It brought my family together to watch thousands of people on their way to realizing a long-coveted dream.
On Monday, I’ll bring my own children to watch the Boston Marathon. The Li’l Peach is long gone, but the plaza is still there, and that’s where we’ll be. It’s possible my uncle, who lives across the country now, and some of my cousins might join us. We’ll cheer for the elites and the first wave before we have to make the long trek back to Pennsylvania. But with the cutoff times hopefully in my favor, in 2026, for the race’s 130th running, my kids will line up at that spot in Natick and cheer for me.
Everything old is new again.
Heather is the former food and nutrition editor for Runner’s World, the author of The Runner’s World Vegetarian Cookbook, and a nine-time marathoner with a best of 3:23. She’s also proud of her 19:40 5K and 5:33 mile. Heather is an RRCA certified run coach.
