BC seniors go behind the scenes of Marathon

For most students, watching the Boston Marathon means cheering from the sidelines of Commonwealth Ave., but three Boston College seniors got a much closer view. As interns at the sports and events management firm, TRACS, Kristin Rooney, A&S '07; Nicole Monnin, CSOM '07; and Lindsay Cowan, A&S '07, got to rub elbows with some of the elite athletes as they helped behind the scenes of the race.

TRACS is hired to operate and manage the John Hancock Elite Athlete Training Village, where 26 men and women marathoners from around the world gather the week before the race. Here, they receive personal attention from host families, TRACS staff, and volunteers, all of who strive to make the pre-race period as stress-free as possible. Between coordinating tours of the race course, transportation to and from both the starting line and finish line, and special dinners and events, the TRACS interns play an integral role in facilitating the preparatory process.

Since 1989, TRACS has been managing services for John Hancock-sponsored athletes. "There is no typical workday at TRACS," said Monnin. "But at least the Boston Marathon is similar every year, so you can go in with a template, expecting what works and what doesn't work."

The girls have worked at TRACS since September and will continue until May. Although it is an unpaid internship, they said the responsibilities resemble those of an actual paying job. "The responsibility we are given as interns is not typical," said Rooney. Seven students, three from BC and four from Northeastern University, have been interning at TRACS.

"We are not going to be asked to go get coffee or anything like that," said Anne-Charlotte Millard, a BC exchange student from Paris in 2004 who returned to the Elite Athlete Village as a host.

At the Elite Athlete Village, which the interns have compared to an Olympic village athletes have everything on hand: from meals and snacks, massage therapists, sports trainers, and resting places. "The athletes come six days early to get rid of jet lag," said Monnin.

Added Cowan: "This way, the athletes don't have to worry about anything but running."

Fred Treseler, founder and president of TRACS, said the goal behind the Elite Athlete Village was to create a community of support for the athletes, their coaches, and the host families. "On Monday, one male and one female wins, but our mission is to see each athlete feel that he or she is afforded the best chance of success through our work," he said.

The BC student interns contributed a great deal to the effort, said Treseler. "It takes tremendous volunteer support to make any big event happen, and the BC students are very significant members of TRACS. This is an internship, but they are part of the staff."

On race day, the girls traveled to the WBZ-TV studio in Boston to answer phone calls from people on the course tracking the runners' progress. "Working at the studio was a really great experience because I was able to see every second of the two races simultaneously," said Cowan. "Nikki, Kristin, and I worked on 'building' the women's race, which basically means keeping track of the lead women at all times to know what order they are in and what changes are occurring.

"The most exciting moment of the race for me was during the men's race, a little more than half way through, when the pack was about two minutes behind the two leaders. All of a sudden, Robert Cheruiyot [who has won the marathon three times] started shouting and getting his group organized to begin making their move to overtake the leaders," she said.

They stripped off their long-sleeved shirts and started sprinting to eventually win the race. It was like they had come out of the locker room ready to win. It was an amazing moment that highlighted the strategy the elite runners implement in their running," said Cowan.

The girls also got the chance to meet and learn from some of the elite athletes in the days before the race.

"The hardest part for me in running the race is from 16 or 20 miles on to the finish," said Hosea Kiprop Rotich, a 27-year-old Kenyan runner who finished 13th in the men's division. "You just have to concentrate on running - if you focus anywhere else, you're gone. You just think about running." n