When I heard about the bombing of yesterday’s Boston Marathon my first thought was of Hazel, a friend from high school who lives in the Boston area and runs marathons.
I was relieved when I learned that her work kept her from running, she is an accountant and yesterday was obviously a busy day.
I refuse to be rushed to anger against people who may have had nothing to do with this, and worse be lied into supporting a war on terror that deprives all of us of our basic rights and freedom.
Instead I’m posting a teaser for a piece in The Nation by Dave Zirin.
The Boston Marathon: All My Tears, All My Love
Dave Zirin
on April 15, 2013
“If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon.” – Kathrine Switzer
The dead. The injured. The anguish. All the result of bombs that were set to explode at the finish line just over four hours after the start of the Boston Marathon. Right now the sane among us will suggest caution. We’ll suggest restraint. We’ll suggest the giving of blood. There will be time to mourn. We will mourn the dead and injured. I also mourn the Boston Marathon and how it’s now been brutally disfigured.
The Boston Marathon matters in a way other sporting events simply do not. It started in 1897, inspired by the first modern marathon, which took place at the inaugural 1896 Olympics. It attracts 500,000 spectators and over 20,000 participants from ninety-six countries. Every year, on the big day, the Red Sox play a game that starts at the wacky hour of 11:05am so people leaving the game can empty onto Kenmore Square and cheer on the finishers. It’s not about celebrating stars but the ability to test your body against the 26.2 mile course, which covers eight separate Massachusetts towns and the infamous “Heartbreak Hill” in Newton. It’s as much New England in spring as the changing of the leaves in fall. It’s open and communitarian and utterly unique. And today it was altered forever. I spoke to my friend Jim Bullington who has ran in four Boston Marathons. He said,
For me and to any serious marathoner the Boston Marathon will always be the runner’s Holy Grail. Runners train and train and train for this race. If you qualify for the marathon you get the honor of running through all the beautiful outlying towns, you get to temporarily loose your hearing as you run by what seems to be thousands of deafening screaming women at Wellesley, you climb Heartbreak Hill, you run by all the college parties, you pass the CITGO sign and know you have one mile left, and finally when you make the final turn, you sprint by thousands of cheering people towards the finish line. Nothing is like it. Nothing. I just can’t imagine this. What is the most joyous occasion has turned into a tragedy of epic proportions.
Like a scar across someone’s face, the bombing will now be a part of the Boston Marathon, but also like a scar, we have to remember it’s only a part. If this bombing will always be a part of the Boston Marathon, then so is Kathrine Switzer. I want to tell the story of Kathrine Switzer because it’s about remembering the Boston Marathon as something more than the scene of a national tragedy.
Continue reading at: http://www.thenation.com/blog/173851/boston-marathon-all-my-tears-all-my-love#
