VIDEO: BOSTON MARATHON ROUTE FALLS SILENT THIS PATRIOTS' DAY IN WAKE OF COVID-19

GBH

For the first time in a long time, the roads from Hopkinton to Boston were silent on Patriots' Day as the 124th Boston Marathon was postponed to September due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But many athletes didn't let the postponement keep them from getting their miles in. Boston Marathon Director Dave McGillivray would have run his 48th marathon after the day's festivities were mostly over like he does every year. Instead, he ran throughout his hometown, first thing Monday morning.

“I got up at 3:45. [I] got out on the road at five and banged it out. [I] ran 4 hours 40 minutes. I have this loop that goes back and forth from the town common to my house and I did it seven times solo,” McGillivray told Jim Braude on WGBH News’ Greater Boston Monday.

McGillivray said the runners who trained for this event, will now have to reset their entire race strategy for the fall.

He also mentioned that going through the motions of the week felt eerie without having to put the finishing touches on the race.

“It’s so surreal. I mean just this whole week. When you think about the entire year and you look at any week during the year and you say ‘where was I? what was I doing?’ You can’t remember. This week, I remember,” he said. “I know exactly where I would be, what I would be doing every day leading up to the race.”

McGillivray seemed hopeful when asked whether the race will go on in September as planned, but stressed the decision was up to public officials.

“The only thing that’s certain right now for all of us is that everything is uncertain. To plan something like this, it takes an army… If, and when the time comes that officials or the medical team comes along and says, ‘we cannot do this,’ then we take our lead from them,” he said.

Former Boston Police Commissioner William Evans would have run his 22nd Boston Marathon on Monday. He said that once September comes, the city will be ready.

“I think honestly people are going to come out. I think the way everyone’s been in their homes, it will be sort of a coming out.… We’ve got to get over this virus which is a marathon itself,” Evans said.