Coffee run

Yeah, there's that other race in town tomorrow, but for anyone whose idea of a good time isn’t trudging 26.2 miles, we offer a different kind of grind.

The morning air was crisp and cool. Temperatures were climbing toward the 40s, and a light breeze blew from the north.

It was marathon weather.

As the sun rose over Boston, the competitors would put training and grit to the test. The other 364 days of the year, they did it for fun, or for habit, or because, darn it, they just had to. But today, for the thrill of competition, they would push further than they had ever dared.

They were going to Starbucks.

To visit every Starbucks in the city, a driver would have to travel 29 miles. But because Boston is maze of one-way streets, a pedestrian could hit the 31 Starbucks clustered around downtown on a stroll of just 7 miles.

So the test was, the two reporters would visit as many Starbucks as they could, by foot and public transportation, in four hours.

At each, they would stop, drink a coffee (or other caffeinated drink, with one decaf and one water allowed, according to complex rules worked out in advance), and take note of their surroundings and their inner state.

Why? Starbucks divides. Where fans savor its efficiency, atmosphere, and robust coffee, others smell soullessness, pretension, and bitter, overpriced sludge. To devotees, the ubiquity of the Seattle chain is convenient and reassuring. To the disaffected, Starbucks filters to its dregs all that is wrong with America.

They agree on one thing: Everywhere you go, a Starbucks is a Starbucks is a Starbucks. And that lends an opportunity for an observer, or two, of the local scene. On the stages of Boston's 44 Starbucks play out the differences between neighborhoods, even blocks, of a coffee-drinking city.

That's some of the differences, of course. Boston is also full of people who would never set foot in a Starbucks, who don't drink coffee or spend $2 for the privilege, or who don't wake up before 1 p.m.

This is not their story.

ALAN LEO