4/20/2020

It would have been cool, running the marathon on 4/20/2020. 

We love neat, clean numbers like that. They feel portentous. But of course there’s no marathon today and the numbers we face are anything but neat or clean. They’re heart breaking and if they’re portentous we don’t yet know how to do the math.

On a day when we should be enjoying the nation’s attention for hosting the 124th Boston Marathon, we have the nation’s attention for being a coronavirus hotspot. As of yesterday, Massachusetts had over 38,000 thousand cases and 1,706 deaths. Despite having some of the best hospitals in the world and the best medical professionals working around the clock, yesterday alone saw 146 new deaths. Unemployment counts are just as devastating. You already know all this, these numbers suck.

But Patriot’s Day - Marathon Monday, that uniquely Boston holiday - reminds us of who we are. The Boston Marathon signifies the indomitable spirit of our city. We are BOSTON STRONG. On this and every day we face down adversity and beat it. We embrace challenges and overcome them. We run toward what’s hard instead of away from it. We take care of each other all the way to the finish line.

My friend Penny has run more marathons than I can count. She was on the course in 2013 when the bombs went off near the finish. She says Marathon Monday in quarantine reminds her of 2013 “when we were stopped in our tracks. Hospitals and those on the front line… helping those injured while everyone in the community gathered together to become one. There’s a juxtaposition of solidarity. It’s hard to express… but it does make me feel like there’s hope for the future and that people rally to support one another for renewed strength and resilience.”

I’m not running this year, but I have run Boston twice, in 2013 and 2018. Both experiences changed my life and made me fall more deeply in love with this city. In 2013 I suffered a concussion snowboarding and couldn’t train. People thought I was an idiot for even attempting to run. I started with a friend who was also injured. We made a pact to take it one mile at a time and stop if things got bad. Though we didn’t finish together, we did finish and the accomplishment felt even more significant for all the odds against it. At one point I dropped my cell phone and hadn’t realized it. A man ran up beside me at about mile nine and asked if I’d lost my phone. How was that possible?! I was speechless and not just because I was so gassed. That incident alone bought me about ten miles of distraction: how had he found me? How had he known it was me of the hundreds of runners around us on the course? How had he summoned the energy to bend down to the ground in the middle of a 26 mile slog? It felt like a miracle, but it wasn’t, it was Boston taking care of its own.

In 2018, I ran for Dana Farber a second time. My fundraising improved, but my body wasn’t holding up any better than it had the first time. I sweet-talked a cortisone shot for my busted sacrum and prayed for the best. This time I was running with my 75 year old dad and my (lightning fast) sister so there was no turning back. The Globe did a piece that featured my dad and my sister set out to beat her PR. That day saw some of the worst weather in Boston Marathon history: low thirties and torrential rain. The weather was so fierce, race organizers ultimately nixed timed heats at the start and, after the elite runners, just let us go. For 26.2 miles we felt like we were being repeatedly pelted with buckets of freezing cold water. Runners filled the medical tents with cramps and hypothermia. 

My father ultimately had to drop out. His leg muscles seized up and he could barely walk. I probably would have stopped were it not for Loren Zitomersky who passed me running backwards. You read that correctly. He ran the whole marathon backwards in the freezing rain to raise awareness for Epilepsy. If that wasn’t a nothing-is-impossible moment, nothing was.

I was so frozen and wet by the end of the race that I didn’t recognize my husband and kids screaming for me on Boylston street. But see that’s the thing - they were there. They followed me all along the course, screamed and waved dripping signs in Framingham, Natick, Wellesley and at the finish in Boston. My mom was out cheering too, and so were hundreds of other people, in the brutal, frigid, windy, soaking-wet weather, even though no one should have gone outside that day. Not only runners, but volunteers, medical workers, Boston PD and cheering, intrepid, glorious fans came out and out faced the forces trying to beat us back. That day I realized nothing could stop us: the horrors of the 2013 Marathon were behind us, though not forgotten. Despite incredible adversity, together we fought through to the finish.

My friend Lisa and I have run marathons together in Houston, Orlando, Las Vegas and New York City. Lisa works in cancer research in Cambridge and knows the importance of optimism, tenacity and teamwork when it comes to beating disease. For her she says, “Running is about being part of a community. About doing something hard and hating every second while it's happening, and loving every second once it’s over. It’s about running every mile for a different person you love and who has supported you on the way. It’s about rounding the next corner of a training run, and seeing your husbands and kids in the back of a jeep filled with water, bagels, bananas, and bandaids.” 

9/14/2020

The Boston Athletic Association moved the date of the 124th marathon to 9/14/2020. As news of the new cases, supply shortages, vaccine delays and the unbearable loss of life continues its ceaseless siege, it’s hard to imagine a September day when we will come out in droves, elbow to elbow, to support the marathon. But it will come. And just think of the bash Boston will throw that day! Imagine the joy and gratitude we’ll feel when we run, or volunteer, or come out to cheer for our city and all we have survived. Think of the pride we’ll feel for the front line workers who kept showing up even when it got so hard it seemed impossible to go on. Even when it looked like the virus was winning.

We will look back and say we never stopped. Our first responders, nurses, doctors, therapists, technicians, administrators, EMTs, custodians, drivers, food servers and everyone on the front line kept on going.  We will say it was a marathon but together we believed we would make it through and we did.

Keep running Boston. We are strongest when we cross the finish line together.