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Hull Woman Last Runner To Finish Boston Marathon

BOSTON (CBS) --- Boston was a marathon within a marathon for one older runner from Hull.

She stepped off from Hopkinton at 11 in the morning and crossed the finish line at 7:30 at night. And even though she was the last regular runner to finish, today she's ecstatic, and only a little sore.

Seventy-three year old Joan Price is still beaming. Yesterday was her first Boston Marathon, but her 21st marathon, having run them in New York and in her native Ireland in the 80's, 90's and early 2000's, though she hadn't run one in 12 years.

"We first went out and had a pint of Guinness which is, I always do that after the marathons," she says.

Joan was in the final wave to leave the start line. She was running, and walking, while the winners won. She was running when the middle of the pack was finishing, and she was still running while the back of the pack was coming down Boylston St.

"I just said, after starting at the beginning, there was no way I was going to quit. I truly just wanted to come under that finish line," she says. And she did it, some 8 hours after she started. "What made me run it was for the recovery of all the people who were injured last year. All those people that came back after those injuries, there was no room to complain, none," she says emphatically.

When she finally realized her goal, it was the cleanup crews that were there to greet her.

"The trucks that were cleaning up, they just stopped and they were banging on the windows, and oh, I felt like I had won the marathon myself!" she says. Joan won a lottery through her running club to get her official number for yesterday's race. There was at least one runner who came in after Joan.

Boston Marathon Race Director Dave McGillivray always runs the course after the official race is complete. He crossed the finish line at 10 p.m.

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