I started wishing that I was in Boston for the 117th running of the Boston Marathon last Friday, in the morning.
You can scroll down and read proof in the post below: “You know you’re a runner when .. it’s Boston Marathon weekend and three days before the race you start thinking about how exciting it would be to be in Boston right now. Even just as spectator or a volunteer.”
I’ve qualified to run Boston twice in the past, but never registered. My lame excuse? I didn’t have someone who would be willing to take the trip out there with me for the race. Marathons are emotionally and physically grueling experiences. They’re impossible (at least for me) to run without someone’s arms to collapse into at the finish line.
The fact that the dead and injured victims of this senseless, evil, horrific attack were mostly spectators – people who were there to support their loved ones, or maybe even just watch strangers sweat and struggle to the finish line – is to me one of the cruelest wrongs of all. They were there to send their cheers and well wishes onto the passing runners, to help them reach the finish line by standing by. Someone decided to do them grievous harm.
WHY?
There’s no answering that, and no logical explanation will ever come. I simply can’t accept the inhumanity of it all. An eight year old boy, there to cheer on his Dad running the race, died for no reason. So did two other young women in the prime of their lives. As of today, more than 80 people are still in the hospital with serious injuries suffered in this attack. There is no why, just awful wrong.
If you know runners, or are a runner, you may understand that we have a solidarity among us that runs very deep. As part of the contract staff of Running USA, I have learned that one of the reasons for this is that it starts at the top. The people who produce running events and road races in this country are some of the best people there are. They are kind, compassionate, logical, smart businesspeople. They work in an industry that brings out the best in its participants. Everything they do, every decision they make, is for the runners.
Every year at the Running USA conference, Dave McGillivray and his team from DMSE Sports are out on the course with us for our morning runs. They are one of the top race production teams in the country. Detail-oriented, exceptionally organized, cautious and competent. Somehow they manage to take care of 20,000 runners, and hundreds of thousands of spectators, without a glitch, at a storied and historic event. It’s a monumental task, and they knock it out of the park.
And now this.
There’s a quote making the rounds via social media, which is spot on: “If you’re trying to defeat the human spirit, marathon runners are the wrong group to target.” (Credit to David and Kelvin Bright)
I would expand that to include the running industry at large. Our sport has experienced a boom in participation that’s going on more than a decade. Huge increases in participation numbers have been recorded as Americans take to the roads. Those of us who have been running for our entire lives have welcomed them joyously. We would love nothing more than for everyone to be a runner, whether you jog a mile or race 26.2.
My colleague Christine Bowen, who was in Boston and thankfully uninjured in the attacks, put it this way: “We are all part of this amazing industry and I know we will all stick together and come out even stronger, but it’s going to be an emotional road.”
But if anyone can take on an emotional road, it’s the running industry, its runners and the people who love them. See you out there.
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A few ways to contribute to the victims of the Boston Marathon attack:
- The One Fund Boston – http://www.theonefundboston.org/
- Boston Strong – http://inktothepeople.com/marketplace/ink-detail/3731
- Boston Athletic Association – http://www.baa.org/
- American Red Cross – http://www.redcross.org/
- Boston Children’s Hospital – http://www.childrenshospital.org/
- And more grassroots ways: Go to a race and cheer on a runner. Volunteer to be a race course monitor. Tell a runner you love them. Go running. Train for Boston.
