I didn’t want to run today. But I had to. Ramped-up demands from work, kids who need rides, help with homework and the like, and my own lingering knee injury seem to have all conspired to make it easier to say no these days. Not to mention the yellow plague that is pollen around these parts. I didn’t want to run today, but I felt I had to. I can’t even remember what I had for lunch, but the stories and pictures I’ve seen from Boston will haunt me for a very long time. Longer than the scary parts of The Exorcist and The Omen combined. And for the record, I’m still freaked out by those films. I know that’s cinema, but what happened in Boston is so very real. Deadlines and phone calls and my other first-world problems suddenly seem so much smaller.
I didn’t want to run today. But I needed it. I needed to be out there; a singular gesture of solidarity in the face of a tragedy that, at this point, we’re all still trying to wrap our brains around. I needed to hear that sound of my own breathing; the metronomic rhythm of my footstrike on the pavement. The music that’s only made when you’re running that swallows up all the other sounds that demand your attention. But not today. It was the sound of fire trucks. Largely ignored, living this close to uptown. No, not today. Although I know this one’s not for me, I can only imagine what it must have sounded like on Boylston Street. Urgently growing louder by the second as they all converged on the finish line; eventually drowning out the sound of the human chaos. I’m sick at the very idea of it.
I didn’t want to run today. But I can. The sports reporter from the Boston Globe said his hometown and the Boston Marathon will never be the same. Patriots Day has devolved from a day of celebration, he said, to one that will be forever marked in our minds and the record books with an asterisk. Triumph, perseverance, underdogs and Cinderellas. These are the story of sport. The history of the marathon itself is a rooted in the legend of the Greeks’ victory over the Persians. Every race has its story, and every runners’ telling of it is unique. Every footstep, every mile is but punctuation on the pages of the larger tome that is the journey to race day. This is not the way it’s supposed to end. Not at the will of some cowardly act, but the sweat and grit and determination of the athlete.
I didn’t want to run today. But I did. I wasn’t trying to run away. Neither were Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell, or any of the other victims. Like so many at the finish line, they were celebrating their own personal victories, or those of family and friends. And as runners, we all watched. And as caring, human persons we still watch, waiting for some part of this to make sense. This same gift of running that has taught us how to persevere and overcome and endure will help us do just that. The miles and the distance we roll up won’t separate us from what happened, but will hopefully make us appreciate each one that much more.