Red Fox and I talked about it last night. The only good thing to come of this is that people are really focused on how people ran TOWARD the scene. The first bomb went off, and people instinctively started running away, whether to actually get away from danger, or to get to someone else. However, by the time those people got 3 steps away, people were already running toward the scene. Runners turned around, after RUNNING A MARATHON, and RAN toward the people needing help. On CBC, I saw an interview with a runner who was a pediatric doctor. She and her father (also a doctor) were "on the home stretch" and were blocked off by race officials, She knew something bad had happened and pushed through the blockade to help. Her face during that interview... She's someone's hero, but she's going to be haunted by this.
I don't know how I'd feel, if I trained and trained and worked to get to the BOSTON MARATHON, which is like the epitome of all marathons, and the culmination of months and months of hard work, only to have the glory of it taken away by someone's... someone's what? fun? stupidity? revenge? How would I feel, as a runner, if my family, my support system, were standing at the finish line waiting to cheer for ME, and they got hurt? How would I feel if I were those 40 or so runners that were THIS CLOSE to the finish line, only to have to turn around and then run for my life? What about those who never got even close to the finish line? Bitter? Relieved?
The running community is like a secret club. We're all there to help and support each other. You know how bikers wave at each other when they pass? Runners have that same acknowledgement. No matter what pace you're running, what distance, what fancy electronics you have or don't have, no matter what brand you're wearing... we make eye contact and wave, which is like a silent "keep it up!". On Facebook, I'm in the Run Nova Scotia and the PEI RoadRunners groups. There was more activity in those groups the last 2 days than ever before. It was amazing to me how quickly we had news about all the runners from NS and PEI. News that they were all safe. Thank God.
I'm also in a parenting group on Facebook. The members are mostly American. One of the mom's posted that her friend's 2 brothers each lost a leg. http://news.yahoo.com/gripping-story-two-brothers-both-lost-legs-boston-132716397.html
"That fate tragically struck one family twice on Monday. Liz Norden, a mother of five, says that two of her sons lost a leg in one of the blasts.
She describes the unfolding of Monday's event to the Boston Globe, which began with a call on her cellphone:
"Ma, I'm hurt real bad," said her 31-year-old son. He was in an ambulance, he told her, being rushed to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.It was her second boy, who had gone with his older brother to watch a friend run in the Boston Marathon.On the phone, her son said his legs were badly burned in an explosion. His brother had been next to him, but he didn't know where he was.Within the next two hours, amid frantic phone calls and a panicked drive into Boston, Norden pieced together the horrific truth that will forever change her two sons' lives -- and her own. Each of the brothers lost a leg, from the knee down. One was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess, while the other was at Brigham and Women's Hospital. 'I'd never imagined in my wildest dreams this would ever happen.'"
And then there's this story, which I came across on another runner's blog: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/04/16/3985154/some-from-charlotte-are-among.html
Runners all over the world are going to be running for Boston. If you see a runner out in Boston colours, or a Boston marathon jacket, give them a wave. Well, do that for any runner, actually. There isn't a runner out there who won't be thinking about Boston.
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