Marathon Monday in Boston

Today is Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts, which most of us here in the Boston area also know as Marathon Monday! Today, for obvious reasons, there will be no Boston Marathon – a great disappointment to thousands of runners who had prepared for this day as well as thousands who looked forward to cheering them on. Though the Marathon is not being held today, I suspect that many of us are reflecting on what it means to us in this time of disruption and distancing.

Though I grew up in Buffalo NY, it seems that I always knew when the Boston Marathon was being held. Long before the time of 24/7 sports cycle, I recall as a kid eagerly awaiting the delivering of the newspaper to see who had won “Boston” on the previous day. When I came to Boston for graduate school, I went to the 20-mile point near Centre Street and Comm Ave in Newton to see my first Boston Marathon live and in person.

The year was 1984 and I was absolutely enthralled by what I was seeing. It was raining a good bit and I had no umbrella. I just remember feeling a strong desire to honor these runners -vowing that I would stand there and cheer until the last runner had passed -which I did, many hours later. Though I was a runner myself, I ran for joy and for the spiritual sense of being more fully alive that I experienced when I ran. I decided, as a defense of sorts, that I would never run a marathon -as the distance just seemed to be too great and too challenging.

It was the very next year, about five weeks before “Boston”, that I was running to BC when I said quietly out loud to myself, as a vow of sorts, these exact words: “I am going to run the Boston Marathon.” Now I suppose I might have been wise to qualify my vow with the words “one of these years”, but that is not what I meant. I meant that I was going to run this thing in five weeks. I was running about 10-12 miles a week at this point -not much at all -and almost immediately tripled my mileage to get some long runs in - not a training approach that I would recommend. I was 27 years old, confident, committed, foolish perhaps and not accustomed to long term thinking or planning. Not surprisingly, I injured my left foot and needed to take off every other day to rest.

When Marathon Monday came though, I was beyond excited! I was absolutely mesmerized by the whole thing -to be one of thousands of “bandits” – the strangely honorable term given in the pre-charity runner era for those who had not actually qualified, but who lined up behind those who did. I was amazed by the crowds who cheered and supported us all. They were lined up all the way from Hopkinton to Boston, calling out words of encouragement and reaching out for high fives, all to say: “You can do this!”

It was far from easy, but in about 4 hours, I had completed my first Boston Marathon. I was very hungry, getting colder and unsteady on my feet a bit as my muscles tightened. I could sense a surge of emotion welling up and I felt this desire to be alone. I found a small space between a concrete barrier and a parked van and slowly went to my knees and did something that was not familiar to me as a young adult. I wept.

It was clear to me in the moment what this experience of emotion was all about. I knew that this is what it is like to give all that you have. I had lived for years with the vague but undeniable sense that I sometimes took the easy way out and gave in to fear and doubt when challenges seemed to too formidable. Yes, this is what it feels like when you have given everything you have to give. I liked the feeling and I was proud of what I had done.

This was just one experience to be sure, but it was my experience and I wanted to take it in fully and learn what it might teach me. I have run total of 14 marathons through the years and I think I have at least one more in me - but I have not yet felt moved to make the vow to myself regarding when and where I might fulfill it.

I personally have learned a lot through the many marathons I have run. We have all learned a lot through the much more serious experience of the Marathon bombing and the subsequent call to come together as “Boston Strong”. We are all now learning around the world to do what those of us in the Greater Boston area were asked to do in the aftermath of those terrible bombings - to “shelter in place”.

These are trying times to be sure. Real people are suffering right - including in ways that involve loss of jobs, loss of connection and for some, loss of life or of loved ones.

Today, just as I honored all of the runners who ran by me in the rain back in 1984, I honor all of the runners who prepared to run today and who must wait to see if their run will be possible in September or at least another day. I honor too those who serve us in countless ways doing work that is so essential and appreciated amid this public health crisis that we are all experiencing.

I end with words of hope. They are from the one song that I used to play throughout the morning of the Boston marathon whenever I was running it. You know the words - from U2:

It's a beautiful day

Don't let it get away

It's a beautiful day