During spring break, Grigore PopEleches '95 and his brother Cristian Pop-Eleches '97 decided to run the Boston Marathon.

They had only three weeks to train, and their commitment was total. The two brothers, who are Romanian, even quit smoking.

Yesterday, it all paid off. The two brothers finished the marathon in three hours and forty five minutes. And they credited their native country's poor public transportation, which forced them to bike to school every day, for their endurance.

In fact, the pop-Eleches were just two of several members of the Harvard community to brave Newton, the streets of Boston and even the legendary Heartbreak Hill in completing the Boston Marathon yesterday.

At a time when undergraduates sat in morning classes or lay snug in their beds, Harvard runners sweated through 26 miles.

Jonathan M. Miller '94 and Margaret C. Boyer '96 have been training together for the marathon since December. And yesterday the work paid off. They both finished the race in under four hours.

"We were aiming to run it between four-and-a-half and five-and-a-half hours. Then we did it in under four," said Boyer, who is an editor of The Crimson.

Miller said that the crowd played a large role in his successful run.

"The crowds were so inspirational. If I needed some pushing on, I'd yell `Yeah!' and then the whole crowd would starting yelling and cheering me on," Miller said.

Both Miller and Boyer said the long run was not terribly strenuous, though Boyer said she found miles 15 through 20 "tough."

But the race was not easy. Miller said the frantic atmosphere before the start was disconcerting.

According to Miller, many runners drank gallons of water for the few days preceding the race, which made for very long lines at the bathrooms before the race started.

"Everyone was going to the bathroom at that point," Miller said.

Miller said he was glad he didn't "hit the wall"--the runner's term for being physically unable to continue.

But the intensity of some runners' training was nothing, it seems, compared to the ferocity of one woman's hunger afterward.