Category: Jack Running

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:

1. Karen found her voice and told her story in a blog post read by almost 1300 people. This is the most read patient story ever on the runningforrarediseases.org site and it continues to reach 35 people each week, including many HSP patients who have found the post and connected with others. Brianna and the whole family are so inspiring.
2. Team Brianna raised $6350 for NORD. The highest fundraising total in the team’s history outside of the silent auction proceeds Phil brings in. Steve and his Geico colleagues made a big dent in that total.
3. Brianna finished the Newton Integenerational Walk and subsequently went on to jettison her green machine in the fun run at Karen’s first race.
4. Allen got an extended conversation in with Genzyme CEO David Meeker at the team dinner — getting to ask all the questions I couldn’t always answer — and pitching the case for HSP research to him and then by email to the heads of research and discovery at the company. That made all the training worth it right there.
5. We had a great family gathering including a Duck Tour with all the nieces and the nephew.
6. Karen took her blog post on the road with an inspiring speech at the HSP conference where shen and Brianna met Becca Hart.
7. Newton Sports Photography raised $1300 for The One Fund.
8. Karen took up running and crushed a Half Marathon and is on her way to a Marathon and a big fundraiser for the Spastic Paraplegia Foundation.
9. I lost 44 lbs by race day from the start of the fitness journey, include 25 in the marathon push.

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.