Thoughts on Boston

I wanted to comment on what happened in Boston as soon as it happened, but I wasn't really sure what I wanted to write.I still struggle with what thoughts come to my mind and I am sure we all will as the whole story continues to unfold.

What happened was horrible. As my friends and I watched the incoming news coverage, tweets, rumors, speculations all we could keep saying and thinking is why would it happen at a marathon. But I realized that's  me saying it because it's an area and an event that I'm all to familiar with. It's no less horrible for kids to be shoot at school, at a movie theater, on the corner of their street in Chicago. It's no less horrible for a bomb to go off at the Olympics, a building in Oklahoma City, or Damascus. Violence is horrible, where ever it takes place and there doesn't need to be a good answer to the "why" question for us to feel pain, frustration, and anger. It's easy to imagine events happening to other people for reasons unknown to you because we are taught that if we do good we can avoid the unimaginable.

I felt an uncomfortable closeness to what was happened. I had friends running in the race and another friend cheering runners on. Thankfully they were all away from the finish line when it happened, but the thought of someone being that close was chilling. I still get goosebumps thinking about my own goals of qualifying for Boston some day and the image of the first blast going off and the time on the race clock, 4:09 which is close to my typical marathon time of 4:06.

What really impacted me was how it made me feel about the experience at the end of the race. Anyone who has run a race, whether it is a 5k or an 100 miler knows the feeling you have when you are truly on the homestretch. All the training, hydration, gu shots choked down can only get you so far. It's the crowd that somehow manages to make your legs run just a little faster, your feet feel just a little lighter. The pain you feel in that last stretch, even if you've been feeling it for the last 10 miles, can melt away when you hear people shouting. That last stretch in a race is truly magical and to think that for so many runners that last stretch was ruined, or they did not get to make it to that last stretch, because of selfish bombers who chose an event and an location based on people and media coverage really makes me sad.

I know all of us have made commitments, whether in public or personally, that this will only make us continue. We will continue to sign up for races, we will continue to run hill repeats in the cold darkness of Green Mountain, we will continue to stick around after crossing the finish line to cheer on fellow runners, we will continue to man aid stations and fuel runners with cheers and recharge. If there is one thing I know about this community it is that we've never let much get in our way to make a race successful - whether it be running, cheering, volunteering, or all of the above. That is why I'm proud to call myself a runner and proud to be part of this community.