(April 15th, 2013) I haven't told many people about my account of Boston yet. It took me a while to process things. I was very fortunate in that I wasn't anywhere near the finish line when the explosions occur. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...
The weekend started off great. A number of us from New Mexico met up to celebrate us all making it to Boston...
We're a mixture of the Duke City Dukes and the Albuquerque Road Runners, but we're all proud and happy to be representing New Mexico! You can also tell that we're not all guys...a few of the girls had the nice idea to bring us all matching scarves and the flag. One of these photos ended up on the news the evening after the attack and all of my students got concerned seeing me there and not knowing if I was safe yet.
We also had a chance to take in the male and female mile races. Those guys and gals were flying...making running fast look way too easy!
Race day itself started insanely early, as any big race tends to do. We all schlepped ourselves down to the buses by Boston Commons to take a hour long ride up to the starting area, where we alternated between freezing and excitedly mingling. If we weren't all about to run a marathon, it would've been a happenin' party!
Lots of photos from before the race through to the finish. Here's one of me and Margaret:
For most of the race, Tim and I ran side by side...
Our friend Liz was with us for a while too (not pictured though). I remember running by Wellesley College with the lines of women holding signs while Liz egged me on: 'Kiss me, I'm from Texas', 'Kiss me, I love runners', 'Kiss me, I know Karate', 'Kiss me, I'm a lesbian', and so many more interesting signs. Big things like that (you could hear the hum of them cheering from a mile away) really helped me to keep running. I remember around mile 6 thinking that wow, I feel tired...and I still have 20 miles to go! Not a good sign, but having everyone around you in the race (both friends and strangers), and all of the fans coming out to cheer you on (the whole 26 miles of the course was just packed full of people cheering us on) really made it a memorable race in and of itself and helped me find the energy to make it through it despite being over-trained. You really can tell that the whole community gets behind and supports the race. It's something that you really don't see anywhere else in my experiences.
After we reached heart break hill, Tim was inspired by his wife waiving to us and took off for the finish. I followed behind at my own pace (note that I'm not smiling as hugely in these photos as compared to the first few)...
Just a few hundred yards from the finish now!
And right about where the explosions went off...you can see how crowded it was on the opposite side of the street...
Post race with Tim:
And yes, that is my Oxford University Cross Country Club jersey. Augmented above by a shiny cape that we got for finishing in order to help keep us warm. ;-)
Afterwards, we headed back to the apartment where Tim and Thao were staying, cleaned up, then headed down to the subway to head off to the rest of our days (I was on my way to catch a plane, and Tim and Thao were heading to lunch). As near as I can tell, we were right under the finish line when the bombs went off. After I left Tim and Thao and got off the train, it was just a few minute walk to my hotel to pick up my phone and bags. When I got there, there was a buzz of disbelief as to what had happened. It still hadn't really become common knowledge yet, so I could see a flurry of text messages and emails come in, but I didn't have the bandwidth to reply. At first I was a bit confused, thinking that everyone was just asking how I ran, but then it slowly became obvious that something had happened.
At the time, I was in the mindset of trying to get the heck out of the city as quickly as possible as I had a flight to catch in a few hours and didn't know if anything else would happen. There were, after all, rumors that suspicious packages were being found elsewhere in the city and that there was an explosion at the library, so I lucked out in being able to get public transportation still before anything got closed down. As I rode on the subway to the airport, I was filled with both frustration at not being able to get a signal at all on my phone (and thus unable to get updates as to what's going on) and disbelief as to what happened. Where the bombs had been had been so full of people. But luckily, they were set on the opposite side of the street from the densely packed grand stands. Things were very bad, but they could have been much worse.
At the airport, CNN gave constant updates as to what was going on (including rumors that the airport was going to be shut down). All of us, then, were visibly deflated. Many of the other people around me had also been at Boston for the race (or to cheer people on in the race), so similar thoughts were flooding through all of our minds. It's still difficult to understand why these things happened. Even six months later, the dominant feelings are disbelief and shock.
But, just as the city itself is strongly behind the marathon, the larger running community is just as strongly behind supporting the victims of that day. And so those of us that are fortunate will go out, one step at a time, and keep on running...
The weekend started off great. A number of us from New Mexico met up to celebrate us all making it to Boston...
We're a mixture of the Duke City Dukes and the Albuquerque Road Runners, but we're all proud and happy to be representing New Mexico! You can also tell that we're not all guys...a few of the girls had the nice idea to bring us all matching scarves and the flag. One of these photos ended up on the news the evening after the attack and all of my students got concerned seeing me there and not knowing if I was safe yet.
We also had a chance to take in the male and female mile races. Those guys and gals were flying...making running fast look way too easy!
Lots of photos from before the race through to the finish. Here's one of me and Margaret:
For most of the race, Tim and I ran side by side...
Our friend Liz was with us for a while too (not pictured though). I remember running by Wellesley College with the lines of women holding signs while Liz egged me on: 'Kiss me, I'm from Texas', 'Kiss me, I love runners', 'Kiss me, I know Karate', 'Kiss me, I'm a lesbian', and so many more interesting signs. Big things like that (you could hear the hum of them cheering from a mile away) really helped me to keep running. I remember around mile 6 thinking that wow, I feel tired...and I still have 20 miles to go! Not a good sign, but having everyone around you in the race (both friends and strangers), and all of the fans coming out to cheer you on (the whole 26 miles of the course was just packed full of people cheering us on) really made it a memorable race in and of itself and helped me find the energy to make it through it despite being over-trained. You really can tell that the whole community gets behind and supports the race. It's something that you really don't see anywhere else in my experiences.
After we reached heart break hill, Tim was inspired by his wife waiving to us and took off for the finish. I followed behind at my own pace (note that I'm not smiling as hugely in these photos as compared to the first few)...
Just a few hundred yards from the finish now!
And right about where the explosions went off...you can see how crowded it was on the opposite side of the street...
Post race with Tim:
And yes, that is my Oxford University Cross Country Club jersey. Augmented above by a shiny cape that we got for finishing in order to help keep us warm. ;-)
Afterwards, we headed back to the apartment where Tim and Thao were staying, cleaned up, then headed down to the subway to head off to the rest of our days (I was on my way to catch a plane, and Tim and Thao were heading to lunch). As near as I can tell, we were right under the finish line when the bombs went off. After I left Tim and Thao and got off the train, it was just a few minute walk to my hotel to pick up my phone and bags. When I got there, there was a buzz of disbelief as to what had happened. It still hadn't really become common knowledge yet, so I could see a flurry of text messages and emails come in, but I didn't have the bandwidth to reply. At first I was a bit confused, thinking that everyone was just asking how I ran, but then it slowly became obvious that something had happened.
At the time, I was in the mindset of trying to get the heck out of the city as quickly as possible as I had a flight to catch in a few hours and didn't know if anything else would happen. There were, after all, rumors that suspicious packages were being found elsewhere in the city and that there was an explosion at the library, so I lucked out in being able to get public transportation still before anything got closed down. As I rode on the subway to the airport, I was filled with both frustration at not being able to get a signal at all on my phone (and thus unable to get updates as to what's going on) and disbelief as to what happened. Where the bombs had been had been so full of people. But luckily, they were set on the opposite side of the street from the densely packed grand stands. Things were very bad, but they could have been much worse.
At the airport, CNN gave constant updates as to what was going on (including rumors that the airport was going to be shut down). All of us, then, were visibly deflated. Many of the other people around me had also been at Boston for the race (or to cheer people on in the race), so similar thoughts were flooding through all of our minds. It's still difficult to understand why these things happened. Even six months later, the dominant feelings are disbelief and shock.
But, just as the city itself is strongly behind the marathon, the larger running community is just as strongly behind supporting the victims of that day. And so those of us that are fortunate will go out, one step at a time, and keep on running...
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