Last year’s Boston Marathon was my third, and it was to be my last.
Don’t get me wrong. I very much love the Boston Marathon. I revere its tradition — the world’s oldest annual marathon, dating to 1897. I relish its history — set on Patriots’ Day to commemorate the opening battles of the American Revolution. I favor its course — a rolling point-to-point trek through eight cities and towns at sea level. And altitude-training benefits for a Denverite, no less! I honor its legends and lore — Bill Rodgers, Rosie Ruiz, Johnny Kelley, Heartbreak Hill.
Most of all, I celebrate its gantlet. From the start on Main Street in rural Hopkinton to the downtown finish on Boylston Street, crowds estimated at half a million line the entirety of the course. For marathoners overly familiar with many lonely miles of training, this raucous processional is .
No. Earbuds. Necessary.
Yet, when you add up the registration fee, airfare, hotel charges and the irresistible celebratory tour of both raw bars and whiskey bars, it can amount to a costly enterprise. Of course, that doesn’t include the steep investment of time necessary to train not only for the Boston Marathon itself, but also a preceding marathon to meet . Yep, parsimony dictated: Last year would be the last hurrah.
Until the bombs.
After finishing last year’s race, I moseyed back to the hotel room, vomited, showered, vomited, then passed out from exhaustion on the floor in a bathrobe. My wife and I were beyond earshot of the two blasts, which first came to our attention via text message: “You guys OK?”
Then cellphone service vanished. Sirens rattled the window, through which we saw a police officer capsizing trash cans. News footage on television revealed exactly why the sea of euphoria we remembered at the finish line had turned into .
By virtue of a harmless photo that my wife shot of me near the finish, we soon learned that she was positioned in harm’s way — between the two bombs that were approximately 200 yards apart more than an hour before the explosions. What if I’d pulled a hamstring? Or run out of gas?
The distance-running community is not one anyone wants to rankle and rally. Google the following for a recent example: “VP candidate Paul Ryan sub-3 marathon.” So, of course, I signed up for the 2014 Boston Marathon at the first opportunity to honor the three spectators who died and more than 260 who were injured as a result of the bombings, as well as to salute the fearlessness of first responders, medical teams and law-enforcement officials during the aftermath, which I was plumb lucky not to witness firsthand.
I also will run to protest yet another disgusting attack on innocent Americans in simple pursuit of self-improvement. Why should anyone ever have to worry about violence when going to work, going to school, going to worship or going for a run?
I can’t wait to lend a tiny hand this Marathon Monday to the reclamation of the world’s most storied running event by the defiant Boston area and the race’s second-largest field ever at 36,000, including nearly 5,000 nonfinishers from last year. There will be more security measures, sure. Doubtless more hassles. However, there will be more spectators too; . Boston Strong.
Couldn’t keep me from taking in double the gantlet.
Bryan Boyle: 303-954-1311, bboyle@denverpost.com or twitter.com/bryan_boyle
