Burrito-Eating Half Marathon Starts in Brookline Tomorrow

In a town stuffed with burrito lovers, Daniel Rosmarin stands out.

For the last four years, the Boston native has led a growing group of friends in a annual march to each of the six Anna's Taqueria locations in Greater Boston, stopping for one of the restaurant's famously cheap burritos at each stop along the 13-mile route. He called it the Burrito Half Marathon.

"It it's really about burrito avidity," he said. "Everybody loves burritos, everyone loves Anna's."

Until this year, the marathon was totally off the books, little more than Rosmarin and a large group of burrito-loving friends marching through the city. Staff at Anna's would inevitably catch on and cheer the crowd on as they arrived at each location, but restaurant management was never involved.

That changed this year. Rosmarin decided to take the marathon to a new level and convinced Anna's owner Michael Kamio to spring for a couple of free burritos and posters advertising the event.

"I think he's probably a little surprised we decided to take it this far," Rosmarin said. "Most things that are taken this far are for a cause, and that's a great part of this – at least for now, it's not for an ulterior motive. It's just for fun."

Rosmarin has mapped out a 13.1 route that will take the marathoners from the Beacon Street Anna's to the taqueria by Massachusetts General Hospital, then across the Charles River to the location at MIT. The team will then march across Cambridge to the Anna's in Porter Square before heading to Davis Square for a quick second burrito, a stretch Rosmarin calls the "Heartbreak Hill of the Burrito Half Marathon" because it leaves little time for digestion.

The marathon eventually wraps up back in Brookline with one last burrito at the Anna's on Harvard Street in JFK Crossing. The whole event goes from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., meaning marathoners have a little more than six hours to consume six burritos – though Rosmarin said not everyone completes the full course.

"It's great when people do, but by no means to we require it," he said.

The half marathon is not the first organized event aimed at celebrating burrito appreciation in Brookline. Last September, several dozen people hit up the four burrito joints between Cleveland Circle and Coolidge Corner for a coordinated event dubbed the "BurritUp." Organizers hinted at the possibility of a second event, but so far nothing has materialized.

Rosmarin said he first became enamored with the Anna's burrito as a high school student driving up from Dedham after school to graze on Mexican takeout with friends. Later, when he was attending college in Vermont, Rosmarin would beg visiting friends to stop by Anna's on their way out of town and bring him a burrito.

Rosmarin now works at home for a Toronto biotech company and plans to leave Boston this fall to get a graduate degree at Oxford in London. But he said the trans-Atlantic fight probably wouldn't stop him from organizing a fifth annual Burrito Half Marathon.

"This is an important event," he said. "And it's only a couple of hour flight."

To join the marathon, go to the Beacon Street Anna's Taqueria at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 21 or check out the event page on Facebook.