UNREAL

I have been unable for the past month plus now to figure out how to describe Boston.  It went beyond my expectations in so many different ways, but every time somebody asks me how the race went I am not sure if I am supposed to simply say amazing, or if I am supposed to give details related to my own run.  Most likely sane people care very little how somebody in the middle of the pack's race actually went . . . but, shocker, I am going to do a quick paragraph summary before actually talking about the experience of Boston 2014:

I went out as close to 3 hour pace as I could, and pretty much ran my planned splits till about mile 18-20 when things gradually ground to a halt.  Ironically, it came as little surprise to me that my body/mind shut down in the final 10km - I felt it coming from early on in the day.  Although I was able to maintain pace for the first half to 3/4s of the race, it was pretty clear from the outset that I was working harder than normal and my self talk was more negative than normal.  My strategy then became one of simply trying to maintain pace as long as I could and see if my body/mind might bounce back in the later miles.  No such luck.  Not sure if my struggles were related to getting older, loss of fitness from being injured, loss of energy from having run harder than expected the month before at Antelope, having an off day, dehydration, playing too much prior to the race, or some such combination of said factors.  In either case, I was able to hold on just enough to qualify for Boston next year and genuinely felt like I left what I had out on the road but missed my personal time goals by about a dozen minutes - and running goes on.

As far as the experience itself, Boston was in a class all its own.  The crowds were amazing.  The city was amazing.  The stories were amazing.  The simple fact that the race went on as grand as ever was amazing.  And so here are a few of the images and or scenes that have stayed with me (and what I want to get down so that in a few years I can recollect them through the haze):

A crazy sort of silence as we walked downhill toward the starting corrals from the pre-race grouping area.  I am not sure if other runners experienced this, or if I just ended up in a weird group, but it was an intense moment as a few thousand people walked together in relative stillness.

A boy standing in the crowd with his family cheering as loudly as possible and holding a sign that said, "Thank You - thanks for being here."    

A phone conversation overheard the night before in which a mother talked about her daughter returning to all the places she had struggled to forget/remember from last year's race.  Her daughter had been fine, had just finished her first Boston Marathon and was recovering in the medical tent when the bombs went off.  The day and her memories completely changed in an instant, now she was back ready to run again.      

The pre-race excitement Bostonians seemed to have in abundance this year.  I got to hang out a good deal with Rick and Elizabeth (Alta friends who live in Boston most of the non-snow part of the year) before the race and it was so cool to hear their stories about the race, their strategies for watching on race day, and about the city in general.  It gave the crowd a much more personal feel.  I have to say in general the crowd this year was not only bigger than I remember from the other time I ran Boston, but also seemed more focused on the runners and the race - instead of the race simply being an excuse to party (which I completely understand and appreciate) it seemed like the race itself was the celebration.  I am not quite sure how to put that into words, but I have never been in a race (road or trail) where there was such synergy between the participants and the audience.  It was almost like the spectators themselves were actively participating in the race - this was of course nowhere more true than going through the Wellesley Tunnel of Sound.  

The constantly shifting memorial(s) on Boylston street.  The crowd's energy on Boylston street.  The fact that reaching the finish line was a struggle this time round added something to this experience for me . . . I felt engulfed.

Sightseeing along the coast with my old man.  He is the one who got me into running some 30+ years ago and it felt right touring around with him prior to this race in a whole assortment of venues my mom would have loved to visit - in fact, in retrospect, I am shocked this was my first time to Harvard Square since we had all done the east coast as a family trip years ago and the area around the campus would have certainly been my mom's kind of venue. (Note: I am trying hard to keep myself from pointing out how the PAC12 schools trump anything on the east coast in terms of not simply academics but also sports and lifestyle).

Hearing that Meb won the race upon finishing.  I know it's silly-sentimental-foolish-patriotism but there was something genuinely cool about having an American winner and for that winner to be Meb downright unreal awesomeness.

All of the people who were running/walking different events after having been injured last year.

The courage showed by so many families to return to where they had been standing the year before to once again cheer on a bunch of screwballs running in short-shorts.  In hindsight it's pretty easy to say how safe everything was going to be this year, but that doesn't mean fear couldn't have just as easily won out.  I mean this with all sincerity and with a real push at trying to explain how such a simple act as standing along a race course carried so much more weight on this one day.  It was just 100% awesome.  On the plane ride out I met a person who was specifically heading back from SLC to be with her family for the week and stand in the same place she had every year since she was like 8 or some such thing and hand out orange slices.

Rushing to make my flight home, and then have it delayed.  The beer on the plane - delicious.

In short, road races are fast, hectic events and often miss out on the personal touches that come on the trail; however, it was amazing to see so many people come out for such a silly thing as running.  Thanks Boston.

Alright the cheese is over and now back to the trails . . .

Boston Marathon Thoughts and Pre-flections

I am struggling with the concept of running . . . running shouldn't have to mean anything . . . we (all of us) should be allowed to run with the act meaning nothing . . . nothing beyond the physical-emotional release and joy that is running . . . but obviously that is not the case this week . . . running Boston will necessarily take on a different meaning this year . . . and I have been trying to figure out what that meaning is as I prepare to fly out east . . . or at least, what does running Boston mean for me this year - this time around?

"Did you hear what happened at Boston?" 

"Don't tell me, I have the race recorded for later."

"No, it's not really about the race.  You need to turn on the news."

And another moment in our world turned upside-down . . .

I am not one of those Boston people - you know the one's that run Boston every year and seem to live/breathe the course: they know their mile splits, they know when to expect the tunnel of sound called Wellesley, and they know where on the course heartbreak hill lies - but I did grow up aware of the Boston mystique.  It was the marathon I always wanted to run as a kid, and a few years ago (2008) I got the chance to play out that childhood daydream.  I didn't plan on returning: it was cool, goal accomplished, on to the next thing.  But the mayhem of last year changed that for me.  Something about last year's attack really hit me . . . hit me more personally than I might have expected.

Look, I tend to be pretty cynical and tend to emotionally distance myself from a lot of the stupid crap that goes on in this world, while simultaneously being fairly aware of how much stupid crap goes on around the world.  I sometimes think our species is an evolutionary dead-end with violence being its chief fault: bomb this country, burn that village, kill this believer, desecrate that church.  In the global cycle of humanity's violence Boston was unfortunately nothing all that out of the ordinary . . . but it struck me.  It was not a distant enough event for me to rationalize away the images.  It didn't simply feel like another piece of digitized news on the screen, it felt like an attack directed at people I knew.

In a world closer to the ideal, we would have all long ago joined a movement of pacifists and shut down the global industrial-military complex; stood as a human barrier on the border of one country or another putting an end to war as tanks were halted in their race from one flagged capital to the other.  But instead we get caught up in simply trying to make it through life and the heroic notions of our childhood fade away.  The adult infused wisdom that tells us the world will always be this way becomes our forgetful mantra.  I would go so far as to say, it often feels like there is little/nothing we can do to fundamentally change the world for the better.

Last spring, I sat there watching the images of a joyful day thrown asunder wondering what in the world was wrong with our species.  Are we destined to never move beyond this point in our global history?  The point in our history that finds violence the answer to so many things?  How long has this moment lasted?  The entire 20th century?  The past few millennium?  Since Lucy?

And one of my students asked me, "Aren't you afraid to run Boston?"

It hadn't really occurred to me.  I am more afraid to not run Boston than to run Boston.  I am worried/scared that maybe the world really is changing.  I want to return to childhood daydream's of peace and security.  I grew up in the heart of the Cold War, as an American living on the western side of Germany's divided border, and strangely my childhood and the world around me felt more secure and peaceful than the one most of my students see as representing life today.

Sadly, running Boston isn't going to change the world.  It's not going to stop the next terrorist attack or war from happening.  It's not even my "A" race for this spring.  I could simply continue sitting on my couch, or in a bar in Boston nursing the ankle I sprained at BoSho last weekend, and watch the race on teevee and the world would be just about identical.  But instead, I will be lining up and chasing after another sub-3 . . . and yet I would suggest if ever time has meant nothing in a race to me this would be the one.

I simply want the chance to be out there on the course again, stating ever so simply/quietly that the world must become something different.  The reason I want to run hard is because that is what Boston deserves.  That is what the people who didn't get a chance to finish last year deserve.  I need to suffer a little bit in that good-ole-fashion way that pushing yourself in a race lets you suffer.  I try not to cry in public, but any starting line tears will be about trying to both remember and redefine what took place last year.

I am a runner.  We are runners.  And so I will run.