Right
now I am sitting in an old rocker, looking at a Leroy Neiman print on the wall
of my office. The print is titled “Boston Marathon THE RACE”. I acquired this framed poster (lest you think I am a
collector of original artworks) some 27 years ago, when I worked for a company
that supplied footwear and clothing for runners. This was a company full of athletes, mainly
long distance runners, and each year several of them qualified to run the
Boston Marathon. Patriots’ Day, as it is officially known in Massachusetts, was
known as Marathon Day at the office. We were closed on Patriots’ Day, and
anyone not running usually stood somewhere along the route offering water and
encouragement to our coworkers. Once they had passed, we jumped in our cars and
frantically tried to get to the finish line before they did.
That
particular group of runners and cheerleaders has lost touch in the intervening
years, but since I first hung up that poster, I have encountered dozens more
people who have run, want to run, or are training to run THE RACE. Most know they
won’t win. Most just want to finish it.
Nearly everyone in New England knows someone who is running “Boston”
just to be able to say they finished it.
That
is why the events of last year were particularly loathsome. About 10 minutes
after my last blog entry, on April 15 2013, two explosions rocked the finish
line at the Boston Marathon. The elite
runners had already passed. The victims were people like the ones I had on my
list, ordinary people who took three hours or more to finish.
When
I heard the news I immediately thought of my “runners list”. It’s a long list, and I knew that anyone who
wasn’t running might be waiting somewhere along the way or at the finish line.
I thought of the middle-aged husband and wife, who might be running together,
or one waiting for the other at the end. We knew a pair of proud parents,
waiting for their daughter and her friend to complete their first trip from
Hopkinton.
