Boston Strong

“I wasn’t good in sports, so I ran. I wasn’t good at running, so I ran long!”  

Exactly one year ago I finished the Eugene Oregon Marathon in 3:46— first place in my division. I had to be told by others that this qualified me for the 2019 Boston Marathon— the idea of it was so far removed from my thoughts. I didn’t even start long-distance running until I was sixty years old. The thought of running the Boston seemed like a daydream. But a few friends said I would regret not doing so, so I registered.

Boston Marathon registration opened September 10^th of last year. It is a rolling registration process, which means those who beat their qualifying times by 20 min. can register first, followed by those who beat their time by 10 minutes, and so on until the race is full. To the extreme disappointment of many runners, the times have been improving year after year, and many runners who ran qualifying times were not fast enough to get into the race.

With my Eugene qualifying time, I was accepted on the first round. I trained, I showed up, and I finished.

I had hoped to tell you in this essay that I ran a personal best, beating my Eugene time by five minutes. I wanted to tell you that I raced past my assigned group into the next group as I crossed the finish line. That was my central image as I embarked on my training last December. Like the incessant daydreamer Walter Middy, that is what I wanted to tell you today.

Instead, I can simply report that I finished. I finished as the third weather front of the day came in, bringing a 20-mph wind, 20-degree temperature drop, and sideways rain, while race officials cried “hurry up -it is getting bad out here!”.

I finished after being on the Hopkinton- to- Boston road for almost five hours.

Within four weeks of starting my training plan I suffered two severe colds and then pulled my hamstring. Since then, I have been treating the injury with Physical Therapy, Massage Therapy, Cold and Hot treatments, CDP lotions, and naproxen. Yet, it refused to yield.

For a while I took it all in stride. I told myself that I could catch up with my training once the colds wore off and the leg healed. There was still time.

Even my sports medicine doctor said there was enough time if I took some time off and focused on Physical Therapy.

Training run after training run, I experimented with pace. I discovered that anything faster than 10:45 min/mile and the pain was too great.

It was not until five weeks before the race, when I consistently ran my long runs at 11:00 min/mile, that I realized I would not have a faster time than that. I would not heal as long as I was running.

And, that is the pace I ran the Boston in.

This is not a story of overcoming obstacles and achieving dreams. It is a story of being smacked in the head with a reality that I am a human, made of bones and tendons and blood and water and flesh, and at any moment the perfect symmetry of the human body can be disrupted, and there is nothing I can do about it.

It’s a story of high expectations yielding to harsh facts that refuse to respond to my will.

Even prayer was a challenge, though I went there early and often. I entreated, I bargained, and reminded God that I was his kid, and I would heal my own kids if I had that kind of power. C’mon!

In my previous blog, I reflected on prayer, and the role it plays in my life today. I had to listen to my own advice as I quoted C. S. Lewis “Prayer does not so much change God as it changes us.”

My leg still hurt when I sat, and when I ran.

At some point during my training I was reminded of the apostle St. Paul, who suffered from some unknown ailment that hampered him throughout his life. He gives a very personal account of how he approached this with his God, and how it changed him.

“to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ …Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” II Cor 12:7-10

I often wonder what this ‘thorn’ was that he asked God to remove. Paul was a prophet and wonder worker himself—God’s handpicked servant… yet, the thorn was not removed. Apparently, there was a more important issue at hand, a deeper work that would be done.

As I approached race day I past the point of dropping out. I no longer worried about my ability to cover the 26.2 miles. I was going to show up to the finish line in the physical condition I was in. I slowly accepted that the prayers I had prayed would be answered, but not in the way I would choose. The run was going to be a slow slog, and I could resist this cold fact mentally and grow in resentment and disappointment, or I could embrace it, choose to drop my illusions and be grateful to be a participant in one of the greatest sports events in the world.

It was then that I began to see that acceptance of my ordinariness and humanity was the reason behind my thorn—to seeing the abundance of grace and goodness in Gods world. Eugene was a gift, but Boston is another type of gift—maybe more valuable to me.

My wife and I arrived in Boston two nights before the race. The following day, we went to the Expo to pick up my bib number. We then took a chartered bus ride to the starting line in Hopkinton and rode the Marathon route while a guide gave the long history of the Boston Marathon. The butterflies in my stomach were swirling around. I hoped they would fly in formation before the race.

That afternoon we attended Palm Sunday mass. The chapel was full of past and future marathon runners. We were given runners blessing and a Michael the Archangel medal. I wore mine on race day. One more grasp for help!

My children and grandchildren all sent me videos of encouragement, which helped me enormously to keep things in perspective .

It would be a great day, no matter what.

I left the hotel and walked to Boston Commons to catch the official runners bus to the Starting line 27 miles away. Because of the downpour and thunder, starting waves were pushed up against each other, so there was no waiting around. I entered the athlete’s village and took the short walk to my wave and corral.

The excitement of the runners filled the streets of Hopkinton. Some stood silent in their place, while others chatted gleefully. I was calmer than I thought I would be. My plan was to run at the pace I could run without too much pain, and just soak in the experience of the Boston Marathon.

I started out with the pack but had to stop and strip off my jacket. Then, it was over four and a half hours of putting one foot in front of the other.

At about a third of the way through the race, I experienced a shift in my consciousness. It stopped being about me, about my goals, my aspirations, or my day-dreams. It became about us—the non-elites, the everyday runners doing something most of us never imagined a few short years ago.

Something happens about a third of the way into a marathon. The runners have settled into their own pace The passing and jostling has stopped, and I find myself surrounded by about a dozen of the same runners for the next three hours. I don’t know them by name, but I begin to know them by their jersey, their shoes, and their gate. Occasionally I ask how they’re doing and they smile and nod.

It’s my pack. We are pounding the same road, breathing the same air, passing the same cheering crowds, having the exact same experience at the exact same time. It doesn’t matter what our race is, our gender, or are weaknesses. And I couldn’t care less about our politics or religion. There is a bonding that comes from having the same physical experience over a period of time.

The crowds lined both sides of the streets the entire 26.2 miles. We ran from one New England town to another, from Hopkinton to Ashland to Framingham to Natick to Newton to Brookline, past Wellesley University (the scream tunnel where co-eds in-mass invited runners to pause and give a kiss for good luck,) through Boston College, into Boston University. This was strategic, for soon we would enter the “Newton Hills”, four hills at the 19-21-mile portion of the race, the biggest being “Heartbreak Hill”.

The hills were not that bad, and where I became grateful for my hometown training route where the elevation was almost twice that of Boston. It was on the hills that instead of being passed by runners like I was the first 15 miles, I began passing some of those same runners up the series of hills. As we entered the town of Boston the Red Sox fans rushed from Fenway Park to the last two miles of the race to add to the cheers. The constant roaring of the crowds over the entire course made my four and a half hours seem to fly by. I almost forgot the pain in my upper leg, until I would try to pick up my pace. Ah, there it was again—that stickly thorn.

We were told on the bus ride the day before that when I reached the CITGO sign, I only had a mile to go to the finish line. The problem with that was this sign was so big I could see it two miles away, and it didn’t seem to be getting any closer. But when I finally reached it, all the frustration and concern I had trained under was gone. I was running to the finish.

Five years ago, on Patriots Day in Boston, the tragedy of the terrorist marathon bombing resulted in a bonding and transformational experience, not only for this race, but for the entire region. How the community came together and responded has shaped the spirit of this race.

That day was the birth of the phrase “Boston Strong”.

The spirit of “Boston Strong” is evident in ‘most’ of the runners, in all the volunteers, and in the quarter million fans who cheered everyone on, no matter who or what.

Boston Strong does not mean “Be the Best”. Boston Strong means “Show up even when you aren’t your best and help others along the way to be there best”.

The Boston elite had long ago crossed the finish line. Yet, fans a dozen deep on both sides of the road for 26 miles were still there, almost five hours later, through two weather fronts and steaming heat between, screaming encouragement to those of us coming in at the end of pack. We all finished to the same triumphant roars that greeted the elites. The town was there for us.

Because of my injury, I had found my rightful place in the race. I ran alongside blind runners and their guides, alongside amputees, those older than me, and those with congenital disabilities. We ran together, waving and smiling at the crowds. This was what I was not meant to miss—this was the purpose of my thorn.

Gone were all those considerations that separate ourselves from each other. As we struggling runners ran together, some on my left, some on my right, some in front, and some at my back – we were not running to beat anyone, not even ourselves. We were running with each other.

We all carried each other in some way through to the finish.

That is what I came to Boston to experience – Boston Strong.

I have my ‘thorn’ to thank for this.

Kind Regards,

Bob