My workouts

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Boston Marathon terrorism


On Monday morning at 8 AM I tweeted “I am not afraid to fail, I am afraid to not try. I am going to try to qualify for the Boston Marathon.”

It is no secret that I have dreamed of running the Boston Marathon, but when I tweeted that on Monday I didn’t even *know* the Boston Marathon was going on right then. When I searched for Boston Marathon Qualifying times, I saw that the marathon was in progress. I checked some media sources regarding it to see if any US runners were doing well, but the race was not over.

Late in the morning I checked again, but still couldn’t find the names I was looking for so I did some searching on twitter, when I stumbled on a bloody picture tweeted from the finish line that said something along the lines of WTF just happened?

Not the Boston Marathon, please no. Terrorism anywhere is horrible, but terrorism at the finish line to a goal I have dreamed about for years?  I just felt sick, and even sicker when the reports of injuries started to pour in.

I could go off on a rant about terrorism, about how absolutely cowardly it is to target innocent women and children, and about how nonsensical such acts are (what exactly did it accomplish?), but this is a blog about running after all.

On Monday I didn’t want to run, but I did what we have to when adversity strikes, I continued on and I dragged myself out and did my run. I did wonder in my head whether the dream of Boston was ruined. Tainted. How in my mind could I derive joy from all my hard work and dedication, if only to get to the finish line where three people were killed, include a boy one year older than one of my own? I remember on my first marathon he was 3…

“Between miles 5 and 6 my wife and two boys were at the side of the road. I was going to give my wife a kiss (which would have been the only time I planned to break stride for the entire race) but she had the camera up, so I just smiled and waved (and said something stupid) My youngest son (3) was yelling ‘Go Daddy!’ ‘Go Daddy!’ ‘Go Daddy!’ over and over. My eyes got misty and I filed that gem of encouragement for use throughout the race.”

So what do I do now? The same as before, I try to run my best and qualify and run the Boston Marathon. Three people died for the love of the Marathon, and me, a no body average Joe who doesn’t even run fast, has a dream to run it. I will not bow to terrorism, or fear, or doubt… I will run, and I will run fast, and I will qualify for and run the Boston Marathon, and doing so I will show anyone that is smart enough to watch, that Americans, even average slow ones like me, don’t give up, don’t alter course, and we do prevail.

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