By SARAH KRASNOSTEIN
Last Monday, I put my tired feet up and watched the 117th Boston Marathon until the wee hours. It had been in my diary for weeks, in case I forgot and made other plans for 2am on that Monday morning. I had my Boston Marathon app with bios of the elite participants. I made snacks.
I stalked #allinforboston on Instagram and Twitter to see what the mere mortal runners like myself were eating, wearing and feeling before their big race. I was more excited than anyone should appropriately be at 11:30 on a Sunday night.
The first time I watched a marathon, it was the Paris Marathon and I thought something was wrong with the broadcast. Why was the camera focusing solely on the runners at the front? Where were the Waddlers, like myself, slogging through each of those 42.2 kilometers like little engines that could? And why were the spectators so sparse, so blasé? As for the crowd, I’ve since learned that’s just Paris.
And as for rest of it – well, I also learned that in the big marathons, there are officially two different races: the elite race and the general race. But while the broadcast focuses on the former, those two races are really one. Everyone is competing only against themselves and everyone is doing it so beautifully that it will bring you to tears with pride for them and for what is possible for any of us when we believe.
But this Boston Marathon reminded us that there are other types of tears. When the bombs went off about three hours after the elites crossed the finish line, there were many runners still on the course and hundreds of spectators cheering them from the sidewalks. In a single footfall, the zenith of human potential was stomped down to its nadir. Or was it?