Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Boston Marathon Bombing.

  Boston is the biggest Marathon race in the US and probably in the world.  The bomber's timing was off- probably the crowds were bigger at the finish about an hour earlier when the 3 -hour marathon folks were finishing.  At least one bomb didn't go off.  God bless the people injured and affected by this awful act.

  That said I was struck by several commentators, (Greta, Hannity, others), who thought that this terror attack might persuade runners to swear off running marathons.  They don't know fact one about the marathon running crowd.

  Marathon runners know about goal-setting, training and physical suffering in a way that few amateur sportsmen do.  They know about it intimately.  If you haven't been through this process, (which takes years to achieve), you can't appreciate how mentally tough these runners are. At the 5K mark you are happy and optimistic.  At six miles you are just getting warmed up.  At 10 you are in the groove.  At mile 13 you begin to wonder what is wrong with your world view.  At mile 15 you've gone crazy.  After Mile 17 you can't do math in your head to figure out how much distance is left.  At mile 20 you are considering sucking blood from the necks of the spectators.  At 22 you eat a stick slathered with petroleum jelly lubricant for your crotch and nipples thinking it might be nutritious.  You enjoy it, but spit most of it at a fat guy standing on a corner for the entertainment value.  At mile 24 you are just....pissed off.  At mile 25 you are wandering like a person stranded in the desert for a week.  At mile 26 you are giving the finger to screaming thousands.  At mile 26.19 you are trying to beat one...more...person...to the finish line.  At mile 26.2 you start walking and wonder about your life in the universe.

  Marathon runners have suffered.  They have run miles and hours at pain levels that would hospitalize average folks.  A mere bomb at the finish line, or machine guns along the route, mad truckers flattening folks at mile 9, Nazis with machetes at a the halfway point...nothing...is going to stop them.  Did you see the man who got blown off his feet by the bomb.  Bill Iffrig.  He's 78.  He got up and finished the race.  I'm sure he knows his exact finish time.

  The 10,000 folks left out on the course would have been much happier if officials had moved the finish a few blocks and kept clocking folks in.

  I guarantee that some of the folks who lost limbs will run a marathon on prosthetics in the near future. I doubt ANYONE will change their mind about road racing because of an act of terrorism.

1 comment:

Earl said...

Thank you for this post, I won't ask how you know but those of us that once dared the distance understand that you do, too.