BOSTON MARATHON 2013

I wrote this a few years ago. I post it now in reverence to all those who are personally and physically impacted by the events of this day and to all runners everywhere. Don't stop moving... • As a kid, I traveled the farm roads around Rexburg in my dad's old Chevy with the windows open. I held quart jars filled with water as we measured out the miles and felt the cool summer air that smelled like raw potatoes. When the pick-up rolled to a stop, I would gently place a jar behind a fence post or a telephone pole and there it would wait to rehydrate a runner in the early morning hours when the sun showed up to feed the fields. He ran a twenty miler almost every Sunday and when he finished, we drove that route again to retrieve the containers and any extra clothing he had discarded. We knew those country roads well. We knew where the wild asparagus grew and which neighbors liked bacon for breakfast. We knew the farmers would wave at us while they were out changing water and we knew that his sweatshirt would be exactly where it was left when the temperature rose. It was consistent and unchanging and we looked forward to it each week. He was a runner. My dad taught me about racing, and about negative splits, and about famous runners. Things even other runners sometimes don't know. Before I was born, there was a runner, a woman, named Katherine Switzer who created quite a stir when she entered and completed the Boston Marathon. The race director was so appalled that this woman was "defiling" his race that he actually tried to rip her numbers off of her. At that time, people believed that if a female tried to run further than two miles her "uterus would fall out and she would bleed to death". Shockingly, this was in the late 60's and while she never intended to start an equality forum with women's running, Katherine Switzer's race that day was the beginning of huge strides forward in women's sports. It took a while though; it wasn't until the 1984 Olympics that a women's marathon was included. Joan Benoit Samuelson won that 1st hot and smoggy Olympic Marathon with a time of 2:24 after a win at Boston in 2 hours and 22 minutes. I had the pleasure of seeing both of these women last year when my husband took me to Massachusetts to participate in the 112th running of the Boston Marathon. That weekend they also held the Women's Olympic trials marathon and Joanie, as she is affectionately called by runners everywhere, participated at the age of almost 52. Katherine was promoting a book and I felt privileged to stand next to her while memories of an old Chevy and cool quart jars rushed into my head. The Boston Marathon is rich in running and American history. You have probably heard of Paul Revere and his famous midnight ride to warn us that the British were coming. "One if by land, two if by sea", right? Originally held on Patriot's Day, the race is now held on the third Monday of April, known as Marathon Monday in Massachusetts in honor of Patriot's day and Paul Revere. It's actually a state holiday and people come out in full force to watch 25,000 qualified runners follow Paul Revere's route into Boston. In order to be eligible for entrance into Boston a runner must submit a qualifying time according to your age and gender at a prior race on a course that is both certified and sanctioned by the Boston Athletic Association. It's hard work to get in and the celebration is fantastic. Do you know what 250,000 loyal and screaming Red Sox fans sound like? I ran the race that Monday in 2008 and though I was inspired by the people and the legend, what occupied my mind the most were the miles I ran to prepare for the race on the roads in Rexburg, Idaho along with the time I spent as a kid setting out water with my dad. Because of those memories, I am excited about the things I notice when I chose to lace up those running shoes. Do you know that on a late summer evenings the temperature next to the fields changes depending on what is planted in them? I do. And I know that on a clear day the Grand is going to peak over the dry farms and be visible to me. And shhh, don't tell anyone. I even know that at 5:00 a.m. while cruising in a pair of Asics, Main Street is going to smell like sausage and doughnuts. It's constistent and unchanging and I am a runner.