Boston

I woke up yesterday feeling a little melancholy about not being in Boston this year for the marathon but also really excited for everyone who was running. I was remembering my first time and all the excitement that came with it and then hurting so bad at the end that I promised Cherie I would never run another marathon (yeah...). I ruefully thought about the hypothermia of 2007 that I'm convinced was just karma coming back to bite me after KT and I mocked all the warnings the BAA kept spamming us with. I laughed as I remembered that year's pre-race X-L hot chocolates from Dunkin' Donuts and our subsequent potty emergency that occurred when our bus got lost on the way to Hopkinton. My heart hurt a little more at the remembrance of the agony of 2010, running just two months after losing my mom unexpectedly and the sacrifice KT made in running a slow race with me even though her own mom had come to watch her run.

I thought about the race all day, wondering if I would ever return to Boston as a racer. Plagued with various health problems and injuries, I keep asking myself if it's time to hang up my laces and pick up biking [shudder]. But then I was running errands and the news of the bombings came over the radio. I started shaking and had to pull over. I took out my phone and looked at the news. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I kept thinking that the only carnage that deserved to be there was the self-inflicted kind: people limping through a bad race, people chafed in all the wrong places, dehydration, hypothermia, sunburn, etc. etc. etc. Not shrapnel wounds from a bomb blast. And the spectators: that's supposed to be the safe part, and we runners NEED them at the finish. It's the only thing that carries you through that last half mile--I've run a lot of races and nothing beats the roar of that crowd. Hearing that turn from cheers into screams of terror was more than I could handle. I called Dave sobbing and he told me to come straight to the clinic. Bless that man's heart: he made his patients wait, closed his office door, and just held me while I sobbed in his arms.

I realized in that moment that I wasn't upset because I was imagining myself there. I was imagining everyone ELSE there. People who had worked their whole lives to run in that race. People who were just trying to help runners through the last half mile of that grueling course. People who were enjoying the rush of accomplishment. Shattered.

Running is sacred to me. At the end of the day, it's not about burning calories or being faster than the other ladies on the trail, even though that's part of it. No, at the heart of it is my sanity. It kept me alive after my mom died; it was the one thing that felt safe and familiar when everything else was falling apart. Even now, to keep life from spinning out of control, running is where I go. I always feel better when I'm done. It's like coming home at the end of a long day. And yesterday's bombs left me feeling as shaken as if someone had broken into my home, my sanctuary.

I felt compelled to reach out to my fellow runners yesterday after I'd pulled myself together. We are spread all over the country now, but by reaching out to them, I felt like we had retreated into a cozy room, snuggled under the blankets, and reassured each other that everything was going to be fine. And in that virtual little pow-wow, I decided that I'm not quite ready to give up the running shoes. I need to go back to Boston one more time. One more time to prove to that sicko/those sickos that they can't scare me away from my sport. They invaded my sanctuary but they will not rob me of it. No way.

My first Boston - 2006

After promising Cherie (and myself) I was never running another marathon...

There are no 2007 post-race pics since I was, you know, half-naked being attended to in the medical tent...

Boston 2010

Trying to be cheery at the start.

I love my KT.

Boston, we'll be back. I promise.