Remembering the Boston Marathon: Tragedy in 2013

 

Monday will mark the second straight year that there will be no marathon on Patriots Day due to the coronavirus pandemic.
As things stand now, the marathon organizers --- the Boston Athletic Association or BAA, as it’s universally known --- hopes to run an in-person marathon on Columbus Day weekend, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021, as well as a virtual race. They want to allow 20,000 in-person runners and another 10,000 virtually.
Noble sentiments, but take it from a marathon old guy: it's NOT going to happen in 2021!
Why? Because given how swiftly things change --- and seldom for the better since the start of this damned pandemic --- all bets are off. Given my years of running experience, I will be surprised if an in-person marathon comes off this year; it seems like the health experts will never be satisfied enough to allow that to happen. 20,000 people in one place? What was routine in 2019 may never be routine again!
In other words, there are too many health czars who want to keep us cooped up until there’s no COVID around. Recent talk by some of the top federal doctors, including Anthony Fauci, warning people that the vaccines aren't going to protect us from the variants is a warning sign that we'll never be free of this pandemic.
But, not only was that the wrong thing to say at a time when level-headed Americans are desperately trying to convince skeptics of vaccines to get vaccinated, but like the CDC director's ill-advised comment a few weeks ago about "impending doom and gloom," it shows me that most of the health experts don't care one iota about the severe mental health and isolation issues that most people who are abiding by the restrictions have been enduring for nearly 15 months now.
Sadly, it seems that the health experts will always have an excuse to keep us locked up, because let's face it: there will always be variants, just like there are different flus and different viruses, so we will never be free again.
But that’s a discussion for another day.
But today, I’d like to salute the greatest footrace ever --- the Boston Marathon – by sharing the columns that I wrote at the race’s lowest point, after the April 15, 2013, bombings, and at its highest point, the comeback race the next year, on April 21, 2014.

This column was published in The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA, on Wednesday, April 17, 2013:

Exactly 17 years ago on Monday, I was one of the thousands of people in the marathon field, and my wife was sitting on the bleachers, which is near where one of the bombs went off more than 4 hours after the start of Monday’s 117^th Boston Marathon.
Seventeen years ago – and more than five years before the Sept.  11, 2001, terror attacks -- an act of brazen terrorism was not even on the radar of organizers. On the day of the 100^th, the worries centered on the organizers’ ability to control what was the biggest field in the history of the event, nearly 40,000 people. Now, after two powerful bombs killed three people and injured at least more than 140 on Monday afternoon, we can no longer take one of the most positive events in the world for granted.
The Boston Marathon, as well as the New York City Marathon, have always attracted thousands of runners from across the world and have put those cities’ best feet forward. Having run Boston twice and New York three times, I’ve been overwhelmed with the generosity, compassion and concern of the people of Boston and New York toward the runners.
In 1977 in Boston, the crowds exhorted me to cross the finish line, which was then at the Prudential Center, despite being seriously dehydrated on a warm day. And, in 1996, after I started feeling ill at Cleveland Circle right after Heartbreak Hill, the cheers from the people on the course kept me going over the last few miles.
In New York, I was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of the crowds in all five boroughs, and was particularly impressed by the kindness extended to the runners from spectators representing the myriad of cultural and religious traditions that thrive in New York City.
That bond between the runners and the spectators has always been a key aspect of the Boston Marathon. Everyone whom I’ve talked to over the years or interviewed for stories always points to the crowds as being the No. 1 reason why they return to Boston. Such honest enthusiasm for the race by spectators and runners alike is why a terrorist attack taking place along the hallowed course made famous by the likes of seven-time Boston champ Clarence DeMar, four-time champ Bill Rodgers and Boston Marathon legend Johnny Kelley seemed like the remotest of worries.
Sadly, that is no longer that case, and the race will be forever changed. But the question is not whether there will be an 118^th running of the Boston Marathon – Bostonians are too determined not to let the terrorists responsible stop such a storied event, and many of the local runners affected by Monday’s incident have vowed to run again – but rather how drastically it will be changed in the years to come.
And make no mistake: the race will change.
For starters, don’t expect the crowds to be given anywhere the kind of access that they’ve taken for granted in Boston and New York. And if race organizers even allow spectators to wait for friends and family members at the finish line, my guess is that they’ll have to be screened hours in advance, similar to how they are at Times Square on New Year’s Eve or before the Esplanade Concert in Boston on July 4^th. And don’t be surprised if organizers move spectators completely away from the finish line.
Such draconian security measures are inevitable, and they will take something important away from the Boston Marathon. But they will become a necessary evil in this era of terrorism as we are continually robbed of the unprecedented freedom once associated with such events.
While the investigation continues, one thing is clear: this attack on the Boston Marathon was yet another assault on all that is good about this country.
Make no mistake: the timing of the attack was not a coincidence, coming on Patriots Day, when the first shots in the Revolutionary War were fired in 1775. Terrorists have long been aware of the symbolism of the date, and the horrific bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City occurred on Patriots Day in 1995 (April 19).
In the meantime, pray for the victims, and hope that the dastardly deeds of April 15, 2013, will not rob Bostonians of one of their treasured gems: the Boston Marathon.
 Even if it’s in a changed form, the race absolutely must never be allowed to expire.