Students chat outside Lowell House early yesterday morning while they wait to board the bus that took them to the 2005 Boston Marathon.

With the weather as beautiful as it was yesterday, the possibilities for outdoor activities were endless: tossing around a Frisbee, soaking in the sun, or, perhaps, running 26.2 miles.

For Megumi R. Gordon ’05 and Aidan S. Madigan-Curtis ’07, it was the last option. They ran alongside over 20,000 others and numerous students from Harvard to compete in the 109th annual Boston Marathon.

Gordon and Madigan-Curtis began the day near the grassy lawn in front of Lowell House, chatting with about 10 other runners while the bus that would take them all to the marathon’s starting point, Hopkinton, Mass., patiently idled.

Waking up only 45 minutes before the bus’s scheduled departure time of 8:30 a.m., Gordon says she didn’t do much beyond her normal morning routine to prepare for the marathon.

Madigan-Curtis got up earlier, at 7 a.m., in order to pack her bag and grab a few bananas, she says. Worried that she might oversleep, Madigan-Curtis decided to enlist some outside help.

“I had five wake-up calls this morning because my alarm and my body are not to be trusted,” she says.

To get pumped for the race, Madigan-Curtis sang such quintessential adrenaline-building tunes as the theme from the Sylvester Stallone boxing movie “Rocky” to herself.

About ten minutes after 8:30 a.m., Madigan-Curtis, Gordon, and the last few runners were herded onto the waiting bus by Atomic Runners’ Collective Marathon Coordinator Eric T. Hoke ‘06, who helped organize the transportation to the marathon.

“We’re leaving?” Madigan-Curtis exclaimed with palpable excitement.

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET...

For Gordon, the trip to Hopkinton was uneventful.

“I was exhausted and still hadn’t woken up yet, so I was sleeping,” she says.

But Madigan-Curtis and a friend were busy psyching themselves up thinking about how far they were traveling—over 30 miles from Cambridge.

“The bus drops you off and then you have run all the way back,” she says.

When the bus arrived in Hopkinton, the runners were left with three hours before the start time. Madigan-Curtis took the opportunity to mill around the impromptu runners’ village, comprised of tents and a stage, that was set up in the area.