Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The Unicorn Still Survives

5.30 am dawned and as usual I rolled over to check my cell phone to find 25 texts from the Team of Less on the East Coast.  The texts had started with a cheery picture of our first Boston, all four of us looking fresh and  snappy in the obnoxiously loud turquoise marathon jackets.  The Happy Patriots Day message soon switched to the usual banter, with the two tennis players daring each other to do running drills on court and keep headbands and wrist bands with the jacket to scare the other team off.  It was great to talk to them again; I had missed the inane chatter and abusive humour.

A little later I started streaming the Boston Marathon live on my computer, looked wistfully as the runners as they lined up, with a bit of a pang.  Of course this year the temperatures were the perfect 47f at the start that I had been hoping for, not the 89f broilerthon it was last year - I kept thinking 'I so should have deferred last year when the race organizers offered' instead of limping through 18 miles of heat haze and then ducking out of the race with an injury.  We kept in touch by cell phone during the race, rooting for Shalane and Kara, and enjoying the tactics of the worlds' best figuring out that tricky course.  The fact that Shalane could still throw a wave to the crowd just before the crossed the finish line, despite her desperate attempt to move from 4th place to a podium finish, was awe inspiring.  Shalane Flanagan had grown up in nearby Marblehead, and been inspired from an early age by that race and the crowd was behind her. The Boston crowd support is the best of any kind at a race and watching the hoards of locals and those who had travelled for miles brought back some really happy memories.  Boston locals will bring you fresh bottles of cold water, bring you inside to treat your blisters, and throw jelly beans at you at every corner if you need it - they love that race, and despite being invaded by 26,000 runners every year are always welcoming.

Coming out of the gym at lunch time I noticed another 25 texts from the girls.  This time I was shocked to see them talking about two explosions, blood and injuries....the grim reality of the bombings started to unfold through their horrified exchanges.  I got home and started watching news reports and the videos showed that the chaos wrought on that iconic race was enormous.  The disaster resonated strongly with me, as it would any runner.  These were people being attacked who had worked for months to try and do something truly worthwhile, many raising millions of dollars for charity in the process, and they were under siege for no apparent reason.   I was imagining what it would feel like to be that close to the finish line, to be feeling exhausted, slightly delirious and focused on the end, and how bewildering and confusing it must have been to see explosions, or bunches of runners holding up the road. The bomb location was very close to the church that we had all posed and met up that first year, 13 children with us marshalled by 3 slightly stressed Daddy's.  We had stayed at a hotel in Copley square for convenience, and shepherding 13 young kids at a major sporting event was already chaos;  all I could think was, imagine if they had been there amidst the carnage that was now the finish line.  Last year would also have seen baby Berkeley directly in harm's way.  The gut wrenching injustice of learning that an 8 year old was amongst the deaths, made me start to feel more strongly - he had come to support his father in the race and now his mother was having surgery for grievous injuries and his little sister had needed an amputation.  That family had been ripped apart on what should have been one of their proudest and happiest of days.

Whether the perpetrator turns out to be a lone individual or politically or religiously motivated, the purpose of the attack was clearly to spread terror.  With so many concentrated in one spot at such a landmark event the bombs were there to propagate unease and fear.  The reports that there were more undetonanted explosives must have made for mass panic, and a sense of not knowing where to go or how to get there.

The realization that we are no longer safe at such major events is the purpose of such terrorism.  I agreed with the first of my friends who said it perversely made her want to go back and race Boston again - as to stay away was to be intimidated and would serve the purpose of those who had destroyed so much.  In two weeks time I am heading for the Big Sur marathon, and I thought briefly about whether I would be flinching every time I heard a loud noise.  I had signed up both myself and Laurence for the other big San Francisco race, Bay to Breakers in May - previously I had only worried whether he would survive the drunken revellers, now I had other things to think about.  But I know as a runner you have to continue to support the events, you have to keep running and deny the terrorists.

To me Boston has always symbolized everything I like about running and the running community.  The unicorn is a symbol of the perfection of racing, a perfection that is rarely if ever attained, as a faultless race is something we all seek but rarely achieve.  The marathon was what started the modern day Olympic games, it unified countries in the search for athletic excellence and sportsmanship, and this was the most famous, prestigious and oldest of them all.  The race is loved by many, is still a challenge to attain, with runners spending their entire careers sometimes seeking that special BQ or Boston qualifying time.  It is a great celebration of life and intertwines many levels of runners from the international elites to the 80 year olds who have been running it for decades.  Those who had planted the bombs knew all of this about the race, and yet wanted to smash all of those qualities in front of the worlds' media.

Terrorists may have the attention of the media, but I believe that the running community will never stay away from Boston.  Next Sunday, when the gun goes off at the London Marathon, those who run it will be doing so with even more dedication and conviction after this horrific attack.