I began training for the 2014 Boston Marathon yesterday with a 12 mile run with a friend on the American Tobacco Trail in Apex, NC. Running in the upcoming 118th Boston Marathon to be held on April 21 is bigger than fulfilling a personal goal or dream. Running in this race will be not only for my healing, but also to honor the proud and strong city of Boston and her residents and for all those who were injured and lost their lives in relation to the Boston Marathon bombings this year.
I learned I qualified to return to the race several days after the bombings. I didn't know how I felt about returning at the time, but I soon decided it is what I must do. Many, many others wanted to do the same, and we waited to learn about the Fall registration process and the number of entrants that would be accepted after leaders promised that the race would come back bigger and better.
I had qualified by a comfortable amount of time, but not too comfortable. I reasoned that if it was meant for me to be back, the size of the decided upon field would allow for my entry.
Eventually the Boston Athletic Association announced that it would expand the field of runners from 27,000 to 36,000 -- the largest field since the 100th anniversary of the race. That gave me hope that I might be able to get a spot at the starting line. As it should be, the first to be able to register were the thousands of runners who were stopped on the course and unable to complete the race. This still left a few extra thousand spots to help with the increase in demand to run the race. When registration opened for everyone else on a Monday, beginning with those who qualified by 20 minutes or more, I got a little nervous again and began counting the numbers. Those qualifiers took 4,000 spots. Wednesday the process opened to those who qualified by 10 minutes or more. Finally, 10AM on Friday, Sept. 13 arrived for those of us who qualified by 5 minutes or more, and I completed the entry process as soon as was possible. Then I went for a long run.
That night while attending a Taylor Swift concert with my seven-year-old daughter and our friends, I was checking e-mail during the opening act (sorry Ed Sheeran) and saw an e-mail from the BAA. It was a note of acceptance. While young fans around me were screaming at the concert, I celebrated loudly with my runner friend whose daughter adores Taylor while everyone else around us must have thought I am a huge fan of either Ed or Taylor.
The next week I watched as those closest to the cut off time for qualifying registered. I read FaceBook posts of those who were optimistic and nervous. There was not enough room for all of those qualifiers. Some who had run the race last year and qualified did not get a spot. During that week of waiting, I had felt as they had, and I knew I would be devastated if I could not run the race. After it was confirmed that some qualifiers did not get a spot, and I heard later through the grapevine (erroneously) that another runner had received a letter of confirmation, I got confused and started doubting that I was actually a registrant. This period of time was short lived but intense. The BAA had communicated that registrants would receive a letter of confirmation in the mail in the coming weeks. I did not feel quite right until that letter came in the mail on October 31.
As I go forward with training, I have a joyful heart knowing that this race is more about representing American resilience than about any possible personal goal that I could set for myself. When the runs seem cold, dark, long, lonely, hard or endless, I will pull out my "This is for Boston" mantra with new meaning. And before each run, just as I did on the first day of training, I will say a prayer for all those who were affected and for continued healing for us all.
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