To Marielena Carbonell, the Girl Who Stole My Bib Number

Listen, I don't know what you have going on in your life situation to compel you to run a race bandit. I don't know why you intentionally tried to duck out of the entry fee, which benefits Boston community programs and the BPD running club by pinning on your 2014 bib to blend in with the crowd.

I'm guessing you didn't think by using your old bib, that anyone would notice or care. That it was no big deal. Because it's only some half marathon.

You didn't know that I wrote my 2015 fitness goals of "13.1 and 26.6 PR" on the wall at my gym with this race in mind. You had no idea how many classes I did, how many body weight squats, how many dead lifts, how many miles I logged thinking about this race. You probably never even considered that I'd pre-run the course, so that I'd know all the hills and twists and turns downtown, so that I could map out my race strategy. Or all the times I wanted to stay in bed with my husband on the weekends. Or every time I wanted to stay out with my biddies but called it an early night because I didn't want to throw off a workout by being wretchedly hungover.

It probably never occurred to you, since you're 29, that trying to beat a PR from your 20s gets exponentially harder in your 30s, so that every gain I made was just to get back ground I've lost.

When I received the finishers email with your time, 1:44-something, I was pretty bummed that the race didn't get my time right. I knew I left everything I had out on that course; I ran the race I wanted to run, and felt strong and proud about cashing in on over 6 months of work. I decided that could be enough for me.

My watch says I PR'ed by 8 seconds. The race director came back to me and told me I hadn't. I was still a little disappointed, but I knew that I had run my heart out, and if that meant a 2:11:00 and no PR, so be it.

And then I saw your face, Marielena Carbonell, of Malden, MA, in my race pictures. And suddenly, I had a face associated with all that disappointment. And it's yours.

I could lecture you on what a strain bandit runners put on race resources. I could scold you for essentially stealing $100 from the race. But Runner's World does a good enough job of that for me. What I will say is: way to violate the running community. You took something away from every runner there - not just the cups of water or a medal or a post race banana.

Running is about earning your shit.

Running is about challenging yourself to be the best version of yourself, but not at the expense of others. It's about putting in the work and running your hardest on race day to earn that spot. It's the camaraderie of meeting someone new, finding out they're a runner, and instantly understanding something about their personality. But you are not like us. By sneaking in using an old bib, you're telling all of us in the running community who do the work for our spots to go fuck ourselves & our work ethic.

Because a person who runs bandit in some half marathon in the middle of May is definitely a person who would run a much bigger race, like Boston, bandit. Because to you, it's no big deal that you didn't do the necessary things to get into a race.

I doubt you see it as cheating. But that's what you are, Marielena Carbonell. You're a cheater. Go ahead and have your 1:44-something finish time. You robbed me of my PR as an official race time, but at least I can hold my head high knowing I fucking earned my "2:11:00". While you stole my moment in the sun, that pales in comparison with all the shade you're getting as a race-fee-dodger.

And lastly, to Boston's Run to Remember: get your race organizers to spring for an extra tracker code in the chrono strip, so that prior year's bibs don't ping the mats, would ya? That's some serious JV shit right there.


*Update: the race organizer has reached out to me to let me know that generally, races do filter out old bib numbers from the results, but I just have a buggy one. Race on, Run to Remember! Thanks!