From time to time, police forced us to detour from the route, but we got closer, trying to absorb the day’s events. We walked past a lot of crowded bars, where people were glued to the TVs. Again, the word “surreal” kept bobbing to the surface.
After 45 minutes or so, we neared Fenway Park and Kenmore Square, about 24.5 miles from Hopkinton. That’s where my 46th trip came to an end. Two policemen weren’t allowing anyone near the crime scene.
Half an hour later, we were reunited with the others, trading accounts of our journeys and discussing the “what ifs.”
I hadn’t set out to be a runner. As a young kid, I dreamed of being a major league shortstop. But after failing to make the baseball team in high school, I began running and realized that my body was more suited for distance running than for any of the ball sports.
Then in April of my senior year, I stumbled upon a radio broadcast of the Boston Marathon. People were running 26 miles in the sleet. I had a penchant for offbeat activities, and since I was going to be in the area for college, I set my mind on entering.
Today, it’s hard to get into the race. It’s the one marathon in America that provides an entry form only to those who have run a fast enough time within the past year. (The BAA does save some spots for those who raise a sizable sum for an approved charity.) In 1968, though, there was no time requirement. You just had to be at least 18 and male. Racing authorities worried that women might hurt themselves.
The biggest hurdle to entry was one Jock Semple. He was a masseur who was essentially in charge, and he was incensed to discover that running in his event was seen as a stunt by some fraternities. When I phoned to request an entry form, he was in the middle of a massage and asked me in a pointedly unfriendly Irish brogue, “What makes you think you can run 26 miles?”
To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could; my longest run to that point was 5 miles. Though I didn’t have much of an answer, he sent me the form anyway. Compounding my inexperience was total ignorance about how to train. I was a coxswain with the Harvard crew, so I ran 3 miles a day with the oarsmen and charged up the stadium stairs.
A month before the marathon, I bought my first pair of running shoes and started adding a mile per day to my workouts, with a goal of reaching 26 a couple of days before the race.
Blisters brought me up short, but two days before the marathon I did run 20 miles. If you’re a marathoner, you’re surely laughing at this sorry plan.
Patriots’ Day 1968 broke sunny and warm. In those days, the holiday was on April 19, regardless of the day of the week. That year it fell on a Friday. I headed off to the Hayes-Bickford’s cafeteria in Harvard Square. For pancakes, right? No. Steak and eggs. Most of us mistakenly believed we needed protein rather than carbohydrates.
On the bus out to Hopkinton, I listened to all the guys talking about their races and training. I concluded that I had made a colossal mistake. The Boston Marathon was the first road race of my life—of any distance—and I was totally unprepared.
I remember little about my trip into Boston that day, but the starting field of 1,000 seemed enormous. (Today it’s about 25,000, even with restricted entry.) I do remember my exhilaration as I headed down Boylston Street toward the finish and heard my name announced as the crowd cheered.
I’d been hoping to finish under four hours—assuming I went the distance—so my 3:23 felt great. But I was beat up, and doubted I’d put my body through another marathon. Of course, I was back the next spring, and the spring after that.
As I walked the final miles of the 2013 Boston Marathon, I wondered what I would have done if I’d been running along that last stretch when disaster struck. How does a marathoner turn around after 26 miles and not run the final 400 yards? And with a world record in sight, how could I, in particular, have ignored the finish line?
As I tried to imagine the scene along Boylston Street, I wondered if more explosions were in the offing, and if anyone I knew had been hurt. And yes, I wondered if my running streak had truly ended. It seemed a trifling matter compared to the day’s tragic events, yet it was hard not to consider.
I’m not sure when I began to think of my annual appearances as a streak worth maintaining. I suspect it happened around my 10th Boston Marathon. My training went from seasonal to year-round. And by my early 30s, I had knocked my time down to 2:26 (in the New York Marathon, one of many others that I entered).
