Courage in Boston

When Canadian Jerome Drayton won the prestigious Boston marathon in 1977 it was a sweltering hot day with no water on the course. For this year’s race there was more water than runners imagined possible.

It came down from the sky monsoon-like and seemingly sideways, too, pelting them in 40-kilometre-an-hour winds.

And yet another Canadian — this time Krista DuChene — rose above the weather to post a dramatic finish in the world’s oldest annual marathon.

To deliver their best on an important race day is something Olympic athletes like DuChene are trained to do. But to deliver in the worst of conditions takes more than training. It takes guts, and that’s something DuChene has in spades.

She’s trained and raced while having three children. Four years ago she broke her leg in the final 500 metres of a race and, step by excruciating step, limped her way to the finish line. She’s now 41 years old, which in athletic terms means she’s expected to be thinking back on her elite achievements, not adding to them.

But the finish line still beckons. So, on a gruelling, wet and windy day in Boston, she ran kilometre after kilometre with that single goal in mind. Every time she saw a racer ahead, she reeled her in and focused on catching the next one.

By the time DuChene was done she had blown past her top-10 goal and finished third, behind two American women who also rose to the day’s challenges.

To keep going, to keep trying to get to the front of the race — there’s a lesson in that for us all.

To deliver in the worst of conditions takes more than training. It takes guts, something Krista DuChene has in spades