The best traditions often start innocently and organically. Someone, somewhere, does something they might find nondescript and it simply catches on. It slowly becomes something bigger, picking up steam until, without rhyme or reason, it becomes an annual phenomenon.
The Boston Marathon is one of the city's best-known institutions; anyone who grew up in the region has some form of memory with it. It's a 26.2-mile block party celebrated by its inhabitants, a rock concert at a running race. It brings out the best in the city and its residents, both famous and relatively unknown.
Within that long, storied tradition, a new tradition is growing.