Thinking of Boston

Marathoners are crazy people.  People who miss out on sleep, time with friends and family, relaxation and other things in exchange for pain, $150 shoes that last only three months, black toenails, sweat,  and mile after mile after mile of wishing for a bathroom.  We are a band of odd, spandex-clad masochists who spend hours and hours chasing a goal with no hope of remuneration or reward, and it is a miracle that we, in our many thousands, get up at 5am on race day to get from starting line to finish line for really no good reason.

But the greater miracle by far--by far-- is that we are not alone.  Our friends and family encourage us through months of training, our partners suffer through the 5am alarm on summer Saturdays before a long run, so that our craziness, however baffling and annoying, finds support and understanding and love.  And even more amazing: on race day, our loved ones are joined by hundreds, even thousands of others.  Members of the community, runners, friends and family of other athletes, neighbors, sports fans, women, men, kids, dogs... thousands and thousands of strangers come together to reach out and cheer, to shout and wave, to hand out beer or gummy bears, to hold hand-made signs or swish pom-poms, or just to smile.

All those people are miracles.  My first half marathon was cold and wet and, against all laws of physics, uphill the entire way.  And when I started out, I kept thinking that if I could just get to the end, to see my friends, it would all be worth it.  But at each mile, or at each step, whenever I felt tired or hurt or began to doubt I could finish, a stranger, a total stranger, would tell me to keep going.  Keep Going!  You can do it! And I believed them. Those strangers, every one of them, made the journey possible, and more than possible: transcendent and affirming.  And then, at the end, after that upswell of totally unexpected support, seeing MY people, the faces in the crowd who belonged to me, holding a sign with my name on it... it was indescribable.

And every race since then, I looked to the crowd for inspiration.  Every kind of support can be found in the marathon crowd, from the genuinely heartwarming, to the silly, to the punny and profane.  They represent the very best of community and of humanity.  You never hear a marathon spectator boo anyone.  There is no trash talk, no blame, and no partisanship.  My fans cheer for everyone else on the course, and everyone else's cheer for me.  We are all in it together.

I can't stand the thought that anyone would harm those people.  Those people are my people.  Those people who made me laugh when I could barely put one foot in front of the other, who made me smile as my blisters swelled in cold wet socks, those people who were the miracles I needed when I most desperately needed them.  Those people are my people, and I am theirs.  That someone would harm them is unthinkable.  I am so so very sad, so incredibly sad, for all those killed, injured and traumatized at the Boston Marathon, and for anyone who loves or knows them, and for all the total strangers who became connected to them through the special magic of the craziness of the marathon.