Our trip began as a girls weekend. All of us ( my mom, sister, niece and myself) met at the airport and we kicked off 2 fantastic days of girl bonding, great meals, site seeing and reconnecting. I am thankful my niece and sister had to head back home on Sunday. We even randomly met up with friends from high school at Cheers (where everyone knows your name and your always glad you came). That was super freaky but so great. My girlfriend ended up running a 3:25 and change a pr of more than 4 min for her. We went to some great restaurants "zaftigs" and "legal seafoods". I would highly recommend both. We did a trolley hop on hop off tour and the Boston tea party. All great.
Now all about the race.
I was excited about running the boston marathon with my mom but I really didn't know what it all entailed. A gentleman that I work with wasn't able to run it this year (he's ran it several times) and I was picking up his packet for him. He came by my office the day I was leaving and was almost giddy with excitement for me. I didn't get why at the time but I do now. It is amazing. Right from picking up your packet. The volunteers want to know where you are from and they are from all over themselves. The expo is huge and everyone is just so happy to be there. We walked around the entire area. We went back to "zaftigs" for dinner as we knew the menu and knew we liked it and then got our wake up call for the morning. I don't think either of us slept well because of excitement. We put on our matching outfits and our throw a ways and headed out the door to the green line to make our way down to the busses. It was so organized. I think we only waited at most 15 minutes to get on the bus. Thankful we met a lady that chatted our ear off the entire way out to the start. Her daughter had had a baby the night before. She was adorable. The bus ride had me a bit nervous as I didn't realize it was going to take so long to get out there and I thought someone might be playing a bit of a joke on us that we actually have to run 50 miles not 26.2. Wow when you get out there it's crazy. There are large fields filled with people, music playing tons of portopotties, info booths, coffee food and athletes upon athletes. I was in aww. I was trying to take it all in. Who would know when another opportunity like this would ever present itself. I took tons of pictures. We met our dress a like twins before we headed to the start line. When we got out there I just couldn't stop smiling. I don't think I stopped the entire race until mile 22. We started in the 3rd wave. I couldn't believe how deep the crowds were, in fact the crowds were pretty deep the entire way. The biker bar between mile 1 and 2 was just amazing. I don't think I have ever seen that many supporters of runners in my entire life. The crowds carried us. There were people handing out bottles and cans of beer, licorice, jelly beans, water, oranges and that wasn't even the "real" aide stations. I kissed a girl from Wellsley college I high fived what felt like a gazillion people. We saw sister Madonna on the course and i hugged her and told her how inspiring she is and that I watched her cross the finish line at Ironman Canada last year. We met marathon Larry a lawyer from san antonio who has run over 1000 marathons. It was so amazing. It was amazing to be doing this with my mom. I remember thinking at mile 13 we only GET 13 more miles of this together and even as I write this it brings tears to my eyes. I was so in that moment with her. We received our email from marathon foto and it truly captures our day together. We were celebrating. Heartbreak hill to both of us didn't seem that bad. That might have been because of our pace but I had envisioned a much steeper hill. At around mile 22.5 we were given word that there had been a bombing. My immediate thought was that some punk had put some fireworks in a garbage can and that they are taking it serious. By mile 23 we were told that someone had passed and we saw the response vehicles going out. I kept thinking to myself ( in disbelief) that there were a lot of response vehicles going out for someone who had a cardiac arrest.
Then we were given word that we were going to be rerouted at mile 25 and then shortly after that we were told our race was going to end there. A lady that we met had 6 people waiting for her at the finish and she was in tears. It was very sad. A church opened it's doors about a 1/2 mile back up the road (which was across the street from our hotel). A neighbour invited runners to come in and use her shower, phone and she clothed and fed them. We heard numerous similar stories to that in the evening and the next day. This terrible tragedy sure did make us see the greatness is mankind. My mom was cold waiting at the church, so I ran across the street to our hotel to get us some warm clothes. Keep in mind we didn't know what or if anything they wanted to do with us. I phoned the hubs and he let me know way more of the details than what we knew at that time. I phoned my sister and my moms husband and was able to get in touch with my dad a bit later. My phone was lit up like a Christmas tree! I was able to post a note on FB to let everyone know that we were okay. Oh boy did we ever feel the love. Thank you to all of our family and friends for the msgs. We decided that we would go back to our hotel and just stay put for the evening. It was all over the news. My heart goes out to all of those families that were affected in anyway. We were safe, we were far from the incident and ever so thankful for that. There are a lot of "what ifs", but the fact is that we were together away from it.
The next day was somewhat "theraputic" if you will. We were able to walk around the city and talk to people and hear their stories. We proudly wore our jackets. It was surreal. We picked up a finisher medal as well. Normally I am not keen on the idea that should recieve a medal if you didn't finish the race, but we were going to finish and we have decided that for this race we are going to get engraved our last official time at the 35km mark. That was our BOSTON marathon the year of 2013. We WILL be back, we will cross the line together. The photos we took and the ones that we received from marathon foto truly reflect the day in which we were having.
Plan to purchase these
My heart breaks for those families affected. It's not fair. This was a day of celebration of acheivements for so many and it was tarnished by cruelty. I am really trying to focus on the greatness I saw in humanity.
Thank you BOSTON, the B.A.A., the response teams, the volunteers and the community! You shine brightly in our hearts! Many thank you's for the msgs as well.
Thank you BOSTON, the B.A.A., the response teams, the volunteers and the community! You shine brightly in our hearts! Many thank you's for the msgs as well.
XoXoX Boston!
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