Why The Boston Marathon Matters
The Boston Marathon is a beautiful race. Every year, tens of thousands of runners set out, far off in Hopkinton, and run east through Newton and Brookline and past Fenway Park. They finish in the glorious Copley Square: not far from the sites of our nation's revolution. The race takes place on Patriots' Day, and, in a normal year, downtown is a place for celebration: for families to hug, for people to cheer their friends. Everyone who runs Boston has to qualify for the race, so everyone who runs is fast.
I was following the race because I love running: doing it and watching it. I grew up near the course, and I've run the race twice. Soon after the bombs went off, I wrote a quick post. Then we started to learn more from reporting at the scene and I started to think more about the race. Why do we care so much about it? And, thus, why is the converse true: why would someone hate it so much that they would set off a bomb that blows the legs off runners? I wrote a longer post that concluded this way:
There’s something particularly devastating about an attack on a marathon. It’s an epic event in which men and women appear almost superhuman. The winning men run for hours at a pace even normal fit people can only hold in a sprint. But it’s also so ordinary. It’s not held in a stadium or on a track. It’s held in the same streets everyone drives on and walks down. An attack on a marathon is, in some ways, more devastating than an attack on a stadium; you’re hitting something special but also something very quotidian.
When we find out who did this, we may well find some fascination with the event—perhaps a foreign terrorist, or a sick American. Perhaps it was someone who spotted a terribly easy target. Or perhaps it was someone who saw a reflection of the human spirit and decided just to try to shatter it.
I kept myself together for most of the day: reporting, reading, writing, and editing. And then I learned that an eight-year old had been killed—a child who may have been waiting for his mother or father to finish the race. And then I started to cry.
Photo credit: Marcio Jose Bastos Silva / Shutterstock
Financial Consultant at NBT Investment Services
11 年Thank you for the thoughtfulness of this post. No wrongheaded speculation like what we heard from Elizabeth Palmer on CBS or Chris Matthews on MSNBC.
Cardiac Support Adviser for Local Hospital
11 年I was saddened by the bombing and the deaths of those who were but enjoying a day out running/jogging the Boston Marathon. Who are these mainiacs who have a need to cause such horrific tragedies, killing innocent people because they hate what America stands for! I know that the US seem to dictate to other countries what they may have when it comes to weapons of Mass Destruction. The US have over 2000 IBM's in Silos throughout America and some in other countries...America must set an EXAMPLE before telling others what they may or may not have. Its time that OBAMA perform his duty for the people and gets America back on the ladder of Industry. The Senate and Congress have it easy with all the perks of the job...it does not apply to the working class.
Director at DIA, LLC
11 年I lived on Commonwealth Avenue & worked on Boylston Street for a decade. I have admired the extraordinary athletes in 'The Boston Marathon,' from the the cafes & pubs on the street where the explosions occurred. There are marathons and then every so often the spring offers a day, a gift the winter has denied and Patriots day is spectacular. For death and destruction to attack and to destroy lives, young lives on that spectacular day irrevocably resonates and reminds us, - America is in a daily duel with terrorists.