Denverite compelled to help take back streets of Boston
Last year’s Boston Marathon was my third, and it was to bemy last. Don’t get me wrong. I very much love the Boston Marathon. I revere its tradition— the world’s oldest annual marathon, dating to 1897. I relish its history— set on Patriots’ Day to commemorate the opening battles of the American Revolution. I favor its course— a rolling point-to-point trek through eight cities and towns at sea level. And altitude-training benefits for a Denverite, no less! I honor its legends and lore— Bill Rodgers, Rosie Ruiz, Johnny Kelley, Heartbreak Hill.
Most of all, I celebrate its gantlet. From the start on Main Street in rural Hopkinton to the downtown finish on Boylston Street, crowds estimated at half a million line the entirety of the course. For marathoners overly familiar with many lonely miles of training, this raucous processional is a 26.2-mile feast for peripheral vision. No. Earbuds. Necessary. Yet, when you add up the registration fee, airfare, hotel charges and the irresistible celebratory tour of both raw bars and whiskey bars, it can amount to a costly enterprise. Of course, that doesn’t include the steep investment of time necessary to train not only for the Boston Marathon itself, but also a preceding marathon to meet Boston’s renowned qualifying standards. Yep, parsimony dictated: Last year would be the last hurrah. Until the bombs. After finishing last year’s race, I moseyed back to the hotel room, vomited, showered, vomited, then passed out from exhaustion on the floor in a bathrobe. My wife and I were beyond earshot of the two blasts, which first came to our attention via text message: “You guys OK?”
Then cellphone service vanished. Sirens rattled the window, through which we saw a police officer capsizing trash cans. News footage on television revealed exactly why the sea of euphoria we remembered at the finish line had turned into a scene of bedlam.
By virtue of a harmless photo that my wife shot of me near the finish, we soon learned that she was positioned in harm’s way— between the two bombs that were approximately 200 yards apart more than an hour before the explosions. What if I’d pulled a hamstring? Or run out of gas?
The distance-running community is not one anyone wants to rankle and rally. Google the following for a recent example: “VP candidate Paul Ryan sub-3 marathon.” So, of course, I signed up for the 2014 Boston Marathon at the first opportunity to honor the three spectators who died and more than 260 who were injured as a result of the bombings, as well as to salute the fearlessness of first responders, medical teams and law-enforcement officials during the aftermath, which I was plumb lucky not to witness firsthand.
I also will run to protest yet another disgusting attack on innocent Americans in simple pursuit of self-improvement. Why should anyone ever have toworry about violencewhen going towork, going to school, going toworship or going for a run?
I can’t wait to lend a tiny hand this MarathonMonday to the reclamation of the world’s most storied running event by the defiant Boston area and the race’s secondlargest field ever at 36,000, including nearly 5,000 nonfinishers from last year. There will be more security measures, sure. Doubtless more hassles. However, there will be more spectators too; early estimates called for 1 million strong. Boston Strong.
Couldn’t keep me from taking in double the gantlet.