 My name is Will Alden. I live here in South Boston, Massachusetts. I went to Bentley University. I work at Dell Technologies out in Hopkinson, Massachusetts, which is approximately 26.2 miles away from here. I went to Bentley University. I played baseball there for some of the best four years of my life, and then I moved on to my career, but still love baseball, still play baseball, still watching the Red Sox on TV and all the New England sports teams. And I'm just so excited to run the Boston Marathon this year. I played sports in high school and all growing up. I played baseball in high school, and then I also ran cross-country, I usually like to say, because I wasn't very fast and wasn't in very good shape. But I use cross-country really as just something to be with my friends and kind of spend time with the people that I like spending time with. And it was a good way to, because you would just go run for 45 minutes and you could just kind of hang out and talk. When I got what into college, it got to a point where my coach was basically saying that if I wasn't in better shape by the next season, by my sophomore season, that I wasn't going to be on the team anymore. And so running really became a way for me to continue doing what I loved, which was playing baseball. The love of running that I have now really stem from that moment of time where I was able to use running to continue to play baseball. And then I was, you know, continued on how to, what I would say, an underdog career at Bentley playing baseball, where I probably shouldn't have done very well, but I actually, you know, had a pretty solid career there. And then from then on, now not playing baseball anymore. I play on a team in the summer still, but running has still continued to become a part of everything that I do. And it kind of gives me a way to not compete, but I can kind of compete with myself and say, you know, I ran 10 miles this week, let's run 12 next week, and let's see if we can run it faster than we did last week. Running is definitely a huge part of how I try to stay in shape, but it's also just a way that I'm able to kind of get an escape and mentally keep myself strong. I wasn't always great at other sports because like I wasn't very fast and I wasn't all that strong either. But I was always like really athletic just in the sense that like I had good hands, like a football, like I could be, I was like a good possession receiver and flag football and like in basketball, I was like a decent shooter. So just like put me in the corner and I can shoot. Like I was always pretty good at everything that I did athletically, but baseball is really where I knew early on that that's the sport I one loved and two was the sport that I was best at. Once I really realized that I wanted to play baseball for, you know, whatever number of years I was going to be able to play. That's really when I started to focus on that. And luckily I grew up in a family that was really supportive of my my baseball playing pursuits and I was able to play in, you know, AAU leagues and summer leagues and travel all around the state and all around New England and in some cases all around the country. You know, I'd worked for 12 to 15 years trying to get better at baseball and it kind of culminates in a senior year that you can be really proud of and look back on and say like that was one of the best three months of my life. My love of Pedro really started from when I started to play baseball and when I started to love baseball myself growing up in a time when the Red Sox had never won the World Series. And then in 2004, I was in, I think, fifth grade and Pedro was such a huge part of of reversing the curse and having the Red Sox win. And it was like the Red Sox winning the World Series was like the greatest moment in my like elementary school being. And Pedro was such a big part of it that I was like, I love this guy. Like this guy is everything that like a picture should be. And I mean, I think I don't even know what year it was, but I had a picture of him on one of my birthday cakes. And like I grew up with a picture of him in my room forever. Like he was just like everything that I wanted to be. And even from just like a there's so many standpoints that I love Pedro from. But like an on field perspective, like Pedro is always known for his like great change up and like the like no one could hit it. And the change up, honestly, is probably I probably got inspiration from him to throw mine. And that was the pitch that allowed me to continue playing in high school and continue playing into college. So like there's a direct correlation from Pedro to me being able to do what I love for as long as I could. How can you not love like watching Pedro pitch? He just he loved pitching so much that you had to love watching him. He always had that huge smile on his face. There's like the video of him getting like taped up in the dugout. Like he's just like so much fun and he just represents what baseball should be. It's you work your butt off, but you have fun while you're doing it and you perform at the highest level. So, I mean, Pedro really is kind of from a baseball perspective, everything to me. The change up is really the pitch that allowed me to continue playing baseball. I would have never been able to be successful in high school. I maybe would have made the team, but I never would have been successful in high school. And I certainly wouldn't have played in college without this pitch right here. I've been holding it just like this for a very long time. Now, I don't really know how Pedro held his change up, but it doesn't really matter. The whole point is that it was a change up and Pedro really, I mean, he made his money with all his pitches and everything. But this change up is really the one that people remember. And when you see those little videos on Twitter, it's always this Bugs Bunny change up just kind of going crazy. And that really became my inspiration for throwing the change up. It really helped me continue pitching for as long as I could. And being that pitching and baseball is so important to me, and I loved it so much. The change up is, you know, this grip is arguably one of the more important things in my life. It seems simple, but it's really not growing up in the Boston area. The Boston Marathon is always just something that is there and you know about it. And then as you get older, you start to realize how special it is and how the opportunity to run the Boston Marathon is like such just like an incredible opportunity that not a lot of people get to take. And so being someone who now started running and I ran my first full marathon this past May. And so I was like, all right, well, the next logical step is to run Boston. Like, how could you not? And so I was actually hoping to run it next year. And then I was talking to a coworker who ran it this past year and is running it again this year. And she was like, well, what's the difference between next year and this year? And I was like, well, I guess you got a point there. So I guess we'll try to run it this year. So started looking around online as to, you know, what charities had bibs that I could run for and some a charity that I would have some sort of connection to. I don't necessarily want to just run for a charity. That means nothing to me. So I started looking around and, you know, there are a lot of the Boston sports athletes have teams that run for their charities. But Pedro is obviously stuck out right away to me just because of my love for him for pretty much my whole life sent in my application. You know, the explanation as to why I'd want to run for Pedro. I got picked and then here we are. So now it's kind of a best of both worlds where I get to run to represent a charity that does such amazing work and is headed up by such an amazing person. And I get to fulfill a bucket list item that I've been, you know, hoping to cross off for a long time with running the Boston Marathon. I've been to the marathon before and it's just like such a it's like more than an event. Like it is the city of Boston for a day and it really represents the city of Boston for what Boston is. You know, it's not like other cities where you just run the marathon within the city limits like this Boston Marathon really just ends in Boston. But it's a it's a celebration of the whole of eastern mass really starting in Hopkins and running through all those towns that you get to Boston. It's it gives people from all across the state an opportunity to to join in on an event that is so special and means so much to so many people. Everyone knows someone who's run the marathon, but not a ton of people have actually run the marathon and it got into experience the just the the outpouring of support that comes with it in that everyone that day is rooting for you. It doesn't matter the color of your skin. It doesn't matter where you're from. Every single person on the sidelines that day is rooting for you and you're the most important person to them when when you're running by. And it just seems like an experience that you won't really appreciate and understand until a day later, a week later, maybe months after the marathon when you look back and say, you know, when I took that turn on Hereford Street and then I took that turn on to Boylston and it's just rows and rows of people just going crazy and it's just it is just so Boston and it's such a celebration of of this city and the state. And then just the we're so lucky to grow up here to have that right here with us. But really, it's just going to be a moment that I'm going to cherish and I'm going to hopefully remember for the rest of my life.