On April 15, 2013, I ran the Boston Marathon. Around 2:50 PM that day, I approached mile 21. At mile 25, I stopped running. By no means do I consider myself a competitive runner. I am more of a “running a tab at a bar” kind of person than a serious runner. But I have been a member of a great running group in New York called Front Runners, and have done lots of races with New York Road Runners. After my paltry performance on the 2011 New York City Marathon then incurring an injury doing a 60K race 2 weeks after, I decided to take a running hiatus for 2012. I was not signing up for races but simply running for leisure. For 2013, I decided to get back in the running game, and what perfect way to get me up to speed, so to speak, other than training for the 2013 Boston Marathon.
What I lack in competitive speed, I make it up through altruism. The reason I got into the Boston Marathon is because I have been a running guide for Achilles International, a non-profit organization helping people with disabilities participate in mainstream athletics. The person I run with, Tony, has fibular hemimelia (he doesn’t have a fibula in his right leg, just like Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius). I have been acting as his “running guide” as he ran a couple of marathons in the past such as the ones in New York and Boston.
Despite Tony’s perceived disability, he has run more than 50 marathons and continues to be a role model to people with disabilities everywhere. For the 2013 Boston Marathon, he asked me again to help run the Boston course. I heeded the call to run 26.2 miles with him, and I had planned to uphold my running guide tradition: TO HELP TONY FINISH WHILE WEARING A COSTUME. I carefully crafted my UPS outfit with the intention of making a “Ground Service’ delivery from Hopkington to Boston.
Armed with my outfit and a few long training runs under my belt, I took the bus up to Boston to fulfill my running guide duties. Usually, our team manages to get preferential treatment in Boston and do a very early 9 am start time. The plan was simple: to run under 6 hours so he can easily qualify for next year. Easy-Peasy. On race day, for some reason, things didn’t go as planned.
The special Achilles bus that was supposed to bring us to the start left without telling us. So we sprinted to the original pick up station where the line was just impossibly long. It was so long that we ended up taking the last bus going to the starting point. Tony mentioned that this is the first time a logistical mishap occurred in the history of his Boston Marathon runs. Typically everything just goes very smoothly, but something seemed to be off that day (including not getting our usual 9 am start).
We reached the starting point and joined the last wave of runners, as designated by Tony’s bib number. We had a solid start and definitely were eyeing on finishing maybe with a 5:30 – 5:50 finish. We took a break at Mile 21 and my phone suddenly was barraged by texts messages. I wanted to get more information about a “bomb” but my phone suddenly died (not to mention getting awful service). We then moved on to Mile 25 and were stopped by the police due to an “explosion” at the finish line. All runners were directed to go to the sidewalks. As Tony, Joe (the other running guide in my team) and I sat down in a bar to process what just happened, it occurred to us that if we had started at 9 am , we would have been at the finish line around 2:50 PM, the time of the explosion. We felt silly moaning before about not getting our “VIP” status at the start time, which turned to be our saving grace. Talk about dodging a bullet.
Those who didn’t finish the marathon had one more problem to resolve: getting their checked in bag. The bags were being held somewhere for inspections. Luckily, I have my credit card and my friend’s apartment keys on my waist band. The contents in my bag no longer mattered at that point; I just wanted to get out of Boston safely. I walked back to my friend’s place, took a long, hot shower, composed myself and packed to leave. My friend convinced me to stay but the fact that I was staying around the corner from Massachusetts General Hospital (with all the incessant ambulance and police sirens) made me even itch more to come back to New York. The bus rolled in to New York around 4 am and I couldn’t have been any happier to be back to the city that never sleeps (how appropriate since I haven’t gotten any sleep myself). It has been two days and I still do not know how to process what happened. You signed up to run marathons expecting aches and pains, but never emotional trauma. You live for moments of pushing through your limits to gain a sense of fulfillment crossing the finish line, not expecting bombs exploding as you approach the end.
Sure I got lucky due to our logistical mishap. However, I just can’t imagine what it was like for the runners and the spectator who were afflicted by the explosion. Truly my heart goes to the victims and their families. This whole experience is something I will never forget. I felt like I just got a new lease in life, as if I just scored an awesome deal on a rent-stabilized apartment in Manhattan. And surely every New Yorker realizes how rare that happens.
