Prior family scrap book
Jared earned a 6th place in the long jump and a 7th place in the 200m at the 2013 Mass State Track Coaches Association Coaches Invitational in New Bedford Saturday (Newton Tab article, results, LJ photos, 200m photos). Jared jumped 20’7.5″ in long jump and ran 23.52 into headwind in 200m. He was the only freshman to earn a medal in the state-level meet and one of only 6 underclassmen to do so.
Long Jump
200m trials heat:
Jared set a new 22.4 200m personal best taking 2nd in the 200m as Newton North defeated Weymouth 101 – 35 to conclude a 7-0 undefeated season (results, photos). He defeated a 49.6 400m runner from Weymouth, who was responsible for the dramatic Weymouth 4×4 win that tied this meet last year. The 22.4 ranks him 29th in the country among freshman on athletic.net and 71 of 22,000 on milesplit.com. In Massachusetts, it ties him for 3rd in the Bay State league rankings (behind teammate Ryan and UConn bound PJ Hayes from Walpole) and gives him a top 10 ranking overall on athletic.net (state database is not complete).
He also took 2nd in the long jump to his teammate Dave (20’6″) and anchored the 4x100m to a come from behind photo-finish win.
Jared was 3rd highest dual meet point scorer on the North team and (I think) 4th highest scorer in the league, contributing 59 individual points and 35 points via the 7 wins of the undefeated 4x100m relay (67.5 total if you allocate 1.25/relay).
Video of Newton North winning 4x100m relay (Jared anchor):
Kayla placed 6th in the long jump (5.12m ) and 4th in the triple jump (10.89m) at the New York State Track Conference Championships, held at St. Laurence on Friday and Saturday  (results, day 1 press release,  day 2 press release).  She earned 8 points for Ithaca’s win, improving on her 7th and 5th place seeds respectively.
FILE PHOTO from Sam Howell Invitational at Princeton earlier this year:
Jared broke the MSTCA Freshman Sophomore Meet of 21′ 1″ record in the long jump Saturday by 9.5″ jumping a USA Frosh #18 21′ 10.5″ in the 5th round to move into the lead (Newton Tab article, meet coverage, results, long jump gallery, 200m gallery). Â He held the record for whole 9 minutes before it was broken again by a sophomore on the final jump of the competition by another 0.75″. Here is a panorama of the 21′ 10.5″ jump:
He ended up 2nd in the 60 athlete competition. Â The jump ranks him 18th in the country out of 15,800 freshman on milesplit and 7th of 1500 overall in New England (all classes). Â He is over 2 feet ahead of the nearest freshman in NE. Â This matched an 21’11” jump he had previously at Newton North. Â He now has 4 21+ competitions under his belt.
Jared did well in the 200m as well. Â Running into a strong headwind, Jared qualified 4th in 24.07 Â out of 71 competitors and moved up to 3rd in the final, besting two athletes with 22.4 and 22.6 PRs.
Jack got inducted into the University of Connecticut Academy of Distinguished Engineers in a Ceremony on campus on Thursday May 2nd (, UConn Engineering article, Chem Eng Dept article, photo gallery, flickr originals).
from fb: April 17, 2013
Some helpers’ names will never make the news in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing; I’d like to tell you about two who made a difference for our family. My husband Jack was running with Genzyme’s “Running for Rare Diseases†team on behalf of his five year old niece Brianna, who arrived on Saturday with her parents for a weekend of celebration. On Monday, our family and friends gathered with posters and cow bells near mile 19 on the 26-mile course. We cheered for each member of the team as they passed and searched the field for our marathoner. Jack beamed as he came up the steep slope just before Heartbreak Hill and was showered with high fives and hugs. I ran with him for a few blocks then watched as he disappeared over the hill’s crest. Our friends Beth and Jeff were waiting to cheer Jack at the finish line in Boston. After the race, they were going to bring him home. I had returned to our house and was setting up a late lunch for our crowd when Beth called just before 3pm from a downtown garage. She told me they could not find Jack, but she thought he was ok. At first, I couldn’t understand. I had not heard the news. Beth spelled it out: “There has been an explosion.†She and Jeff were in the stands directly across from the fireball, but they had not been hurt. We had no way of finding Jack. Like many runners, he had left his cell phone behind. The minutes crawled. When our phone rang again, the caller’s id was from a California area code; the voice on the other end belonged to Jack. He had reached mile 25.6 when the first bomb exploded and had been diverted with the other runners to Mass Ave, where he borrowed the phone. With Jack at one ear and Beth at the other I relayed his message. Jack told them to leave; he would find his way home. Jeff and Beth refused to leave Boston without him. The perpetrator of this crime targeted the charity runners, people who came from all over the world, people who raised funds to cure disease as they raised awareness of suffering. They logged millions of training miles for themselves, but also for others. In the wake of the bomb, helpers emerged: Marathoners who ran extra miles to donate blood to local hospitals; spectators and race officials who used their own clothing as tourniquets; strangers who rushed in to help. Beth and Jeff returned my husband safely to our door. Like countless other helpers, they will never have their names in the news. I like to believe that even though thousands of runners did not get their chance to cross the finish line on Monday, their actions, compassion and kindness carried the day and won over this horrible act in the end.
Lisa
I realized I never shared all the photos from Marathon weekend. The weekend was a lot to process beyond the photographs.
The race was already a big mix of emotions on the course before the bombings. I was so proud for Brianna and the progress she is making, yet so sad for the cards she was dealt; so happy to have been able to get to the starting line for her, yet regretful of not having done more earlier in the HSP awareness effort. I cried a few times on the course and honestly couldn’t tell you if it was sadness or joy.
The bombing added unmeasurable tragedy just at the moment the 8 month journey to the finish line was in sight.
I had decided to run in September after seeing I could do a 8 mile run for the first time in many years and getting the “you’re in” from Phil. It didn’t seem like something I could talk about until I’d done a 15 miler in December. I’d been helping out with photography and web stuff for the rare disease team since it was started in 2007, but never imagined running more than maybe the 19 miles to our house in the best circumstances.
It struck me that I’d rarely spent eight months focusing on and anticipating one moment in time — only our wedding, our kids arrivals, and MIT graduation would fall in this bucket.
The words “Boston Marathon Bombings” still sound so strange strung together. It was just so unexpected and surreal and senseless.
In addition to the loss of 4 people, the devastation to the surviving victims was so immense. This Boston globe web page brings it home with stories on so many of them. The juxtaposition of this against the deep positives of the weekend as well as trivial regrets like “finishing” was terrible.
Ultimately the runners needed to compartmentalize things. The members of the marathon team and the patient-partners told their stories and processed their feelings in emails summarized here.
I had some downtime two days later waiting for a gathering to start, so I made two lists — one of all the tragedy of the day and of Brianna’s disease, and one of all the good of the weekend and of her progress. The “good” list was twice as long as the bad. I decided to mourn the losses, but celebrate the good — each to their own.
I’ve misplaced the lists, but here are some “good” highlights from then and since:
Here are the photos from the weekend photo gallery along with some memories of the weekend.
On Saturday morning the team gathered in Ashland for a breakfast with the town who we were also running for. We visited the starting line, here with two runners from Ireland and a rare disease runner from Australia.
On Marathon morning the team gathered in Allston for breakfast and a pre-race photo before hoping in the bus to Hopkinton. Its a long drive when you realize you have to run back!
In Hopkinton we prepared at a teammember’s house before walking over to the athlete’s village.
All the runners got a quick portrait taken:
A quick shot on the walk to the start line:
Team supporters gathered at mile 15 in Wellesley. This provided a nice focal point for first part of race, with the real challenges to come shortly thereafter in the Newton Hills. After 45min of running I checked my watch and realized I had another hour and 15 minutes just to get to that point. I’d twisted my ankle at mile 3 when an overzealous runner veered in front of me for the water table. It was great to finally arrive.
Jeff Skell photographed from opposite side of road while team photographer (in my spot from last year) was with the team supporters:
I’d spent a lot of time at Mile 15 photographing the 2012 Marathon limping around with a calf strain, so it was exciting to be on the other side of the lens.
Karen and Allen surprised me at end of the group:
and Karen got a big sweaty hug:
Time passed quickly from there running into Newton and looking forward to pausing to see the family at mile 19. The crowds got bigger and the cheering got louder and my pace got a bit slower, but I didn’t hit the wall and was accelerating as I left heartbreak hill behind and as I approached Boston.
Beth and Jeff got last minute VIP passes for the grandstand at the finish where they had so generously offered to pick me up after the race. Jeff started snapping photos of the race with 3:48 on the race clock, 20 minutes before the bombing.
At 2:45pm, Jeff took this shot looking up the course past Exeter street.
Timelines and a zoom of this shot would later show Bomber #2 (in white cap) had just arrived at that point and waited 5 min until the 1st bomb went off at 2:50 before walking away and setting off the 2nd bomb with 4:09 on the race clock for the charity runners. Homeland Security has this in their evidence pile. From here they’d go on to murder a MIT police officer 100 yards from my old office, complete a car jacking within view of my old Allston office, and to a standoff miles from our home in the days that followed.
The target time on my pace wristband had been 4:10, with wishful thinking that I might go faster if the race taper suddenly gave me fresh legs. Luckily my sore ankles slowed me to 4:23 pace and I was at Fenway as the bombs went off and was stopped 5 min later 1000m meters short of the finish at the Mass Ave underpass after 25.5 miles:
Beth and Jeff were directly across from the 1st blast and saw the horror of the day 1st hand, but focused on finding me and getting me home safely and quickly. Most runners spent hours in place as the temperatures dropped.
My GPS map for the run shows how close it was.
Our favorite Internet Blogger had this post that day flying back from North Carolina:
This is a sad day for Boston and a sad day for running. As many of you know, I’m from the Boston area and I’m still in shock that someone would actually do this to the thousands of people who have logged hundreds of miles and spent countless hours training for one of the most prestigious marathons in the country. More than 10,000 runners never even got to cross that finish line and get the satisfaction you can only get from putting in months, even years of hard work and dedication. As a runner, I have so much respect for anyone who has the drive to run an entire 26 miles. Several of my friends and family members were in that race and to see all that work go to waste is heartbreaking. And then there are the victims, there are dozens of runners who are so badly injured they will probably never run again. One of the deaths was an eight year old child who was cheering on their parents. Many of the injured were actually volunteers and supporters who were working at the finish line.
Not only that but Marathon Monday has been an important Boston tradition over the years. It has become a day where all of Boston comes together to cheer on the marathon runners. Rain or shine, from mile one all the way down to the finish line, hundreds of thousands of people line the streets cheering and yelling words of encouragement. As a child I never got the point of spending the day cheering for a bunch of strangers as they ran through the streets, but I loved all of the food/icecream trucks and balloon sellers that came along with it. As years went on and I actually realized just how hard it is run for that long I gained a bigger appreciation of what these people were actually running for. In high school we would rush through our morning track practice so that we could go and watch the remarkable celebration of Boston pride and human endurance. So many positive memories come from this one big event every year and now those memories will be tainted by this awful tragedy. Now, what used to be a day of celebration will become a memorial and I can’t see Marathon Monday ever being the same again. Who ever did this is a despicable human being and hopefully they will be caught soon. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and everyone else effected. Boston stay strong.
Her snapshot of a NBC tweet touched thousands of people’s hearts on facebook:
I went to pick up my medal a few days later and got this nice card from a Cambridge elementary school 1st grader – “You did awesome”:
Our friend Noriya from Japan experienced the aftermath of the Tsunami first hand, leading the Kirin Brewery in devastated Sendai back to operation. Their courage is right up there with Brianna’s. He sent this in the days after the race:
“I think you and your family have strong stress from this event. Please find the attached photo taken from the Sendai Brewery. The cherry blossoms started to flower and it is the start of spring. I hope this will help you to ease your mind.”
My Garmin average pace was 10:05/mile with a 9:30/mi average through mile 16. The BAA eventually assigned me a projected time of 4:25:19:
5K: 0:29:27
10K: 0:58:24
15K: 1:27:52
20K: 1:58:22
Half: 2:04:52
25K: 2:28:39
30K: 3:01:34
35K: 3:37:58
40K: 4:11:31
FINISH: NOT RECORDED
A search of the “official” results yields the result below, which is a bit disappointing after 8 months of training:
I visited the finish for the first time in September during a conference. The finish line remains on the road all year long:
I’m entered for 2014 and have hopes to have a certain someone along with me.
The Cheshire Prior came up the night before the marathon for a tour of Boston in a duck boat!
[Belated post from Marathon Weekend]
The morning before the Marathon, Brianna, Jack, and Karen headed down the hill for the 21st annual Heartbreak Hill Road Race and Walk. The inter-generational walk makes a circuit around city hall.
Jack wasn’t sure if the Bernard girls would appreciate the early hour of the event, but it was quite fun. After an introduction by Newton Mayor Seti Warren, Brianna motored around the long course with her green machine and finished to the cheers of her fellow walkers (Video of Start of walk. Brianna got a tee-shirt of the deal as well as face painting and balloon animals.
When Brianna and I had a quiet moment with Brianna at the end of the weekend, I asked her what her favorite part was, and she said “The race, everyone was cheering for me!”. It was Jack’s favorite part too. Well, a close tie with this moment at the running team dinner the previous evening that connected her Dad with the Genzyme CEO, which was a big goal for Jack in running the marathon.
Jared set a new personal best of 21’1″ taking 2nd in the long jump, and won the 200, triple jump and 4x100m relay against Needham on April 10th (results, photos, jump sequences).
