6th Moanin' of Christmas: Boston Strong

April 22, 2013

Greetings from the bubble,

My friend Kirk asked me: “Do you think they will run it again?”

I might have answered with a little more emotion than I intended.  I was still in the space between wishing I had been in Boston and relieved I was not.  My eyes burned, my chest was tight with anger.

“They won’t cancel the Boston marathon.  They won’t give up.  It’s 117 years of running.  Never.”

In Hopkinton there is a huge open space behind the high school.  It is the Athlete’s Village for the Boston Marathon.  In the hours before the race it fills up with men and women from around the world, in all manner of physiques, different shades and gaits.  But there is a look they have in common.  It is passion.  It is determination.  It is a force of will, the human spirit. 

It is a unique environment, something pure and simple.  There is no politics or race or economic pecking order.  There are competitors, but there is an implicit understanding and respect. Runners sign each other’s race bibs, pose for pictures, sit around games of cards or simple prerace meals.  We make idle chatter and wait.  We hold hands and pray. A space forms around us.  And then we run.

I wasn’t with them this year, but I felt their nervousness, felt the jitters, the anxious tension waiting for the gun to go off, to release us onto the downhill, to push back the rest of the world for a few hours and let us run just to run.  To demonstrate who we are, to test ourselves in community with others of our kind.  In that time, when humanity lines the road to cheer the human spirit, there is a space created, a buffer between the usual and the expected, and in space is filled with an incredible positive energy.  It is excitement and joy and triumph and even with the challenge and struggle, it is hope.  It is a bubble of sorts.  It sometimes seems a fragile thing, this bubble, but it is remarkably resilient.

In 1972 at the Olympics in Munich, the bubble was pierced.  Terrorists shredded the thin element that surrounded the games, showed the world that there is nothing sacred or beyond the reach of evil.  They used the Olympic stage, stepped into the space formed by the athletes and those who stood to cheer the competitors.  They violated the space.

Bill Bowerman, who became one of the founders of Nike, was the track coach who marshaled the athletes.  He knew they were afraid, defeated even before competing.  He knew the space that surrounded them had deflated, leaving them stained and confused, doubting the value of the competition.

"If there is one place where war doesn't belong, it is here," Bowerman told them. "For twelve hundred years, Olympians laid down their arms to take part in these Games. They knew there is more honor in outrunning a man than killing him. So you must not believe that running, or jumping, or throwing are meaningless. They were your fellow Olympians' answer to war. They must be yours."

The tragedy unfolded and it seemed the competition was over.  But when the Olympic committee determined to let the events restart, the bubble had been pierced.  The separateness, the safety, the faint illusion that the games protected them from the world, had leaked out.  The athletes huddled together, tense, afraid that there would be more violence.  The marathoners debated the sensibility knowing they could be targets.  But in the end, the will to compete, the passion to hold the fire higher so the world could witness, won out. 

Frank Shorter, who went on to win the marathon, said: “This is as scared as I’m going to get.  Let’s run.”

Five months ago the bubble took on a different shape.  When superstorm Sandy devastated the east coast and turned the Big Apple into a dark scary place.  40,000 runners surged toward New York to run the marathon, an overwhelming force.  Their message was that the race must go on, the space must be honored.

But the people living in darkness, without water or safety, bristled.  Soon the race was seen as frivolous, trivial, irrelevant.  The voices said: “Who do these people think they are?  Coming here like they are something special?  Taking resources from us.”

The bubble was an intruder.  I didn’t think so at first, but of course it was right to cancel the race.  The space that is created around the marathon, and events like it, is meant to include not exclude.  The runners who had already arrived, from all over the globe, stayed to help.  They cleaned and carried water and made themselves useful.  And promised to run again.  And in that first moment, the space began to form once more.

In Boston terrorists used the stage again.  But we will not let them take the space we created.  After the explosion people ran from the spot, but look to see who the first responders were.  Runners.  Men and women who had just completed 26.2 miles of challenge, who turned and ran back to the chaos to help.  Marathoners literally lined up to give blood. Runners in tears, terrified, held on to one another, and to the people around them, and slowly built strength, renewed resolve.  And in before the day was over the space began to build again.

George Sheehan, the runner philosopher, said this: “Winning and losing is what you do in team games. The runner is not in a game; he is in a contest. And that is a word whose Latin root means to witness or testify. The other runners are witnesses to what he is doing. And therefore, anything else than all he can give is not enough. When you race, you are under oath. When you race, you are testifying as to who you are.”

We run to testify, and to push those around us, running with us, standing watching us, to do the same.  To say: we commit to be the best we can for ourselves and for each other.

We run to test ourselves.  To improve.  To inspire.  To remember.  To represent.  To compete.  We run not to be separate from the world but to bring the world with us.  To testify.  To give witness that even in this simple act we can be as one people.  We can rise above the grey dimness that threatens humanity and hold the light high, for ourselves and for those who would run with us. 

There is not enough world to hold us back.  Not enough violence or disdain or hate or ridicule or fear or cynicism or doubt.  We will run again, not because we are elite or different or special, but because we are meant to run, as humans, as companions.  We are meant to express ourselves in this way.  I believe it.

In Hopkinton, 26.2 miles from Boston, behind the blue and gold starting line, with its iconic unicorn, we wait. There is a moment before the big gun goes off, when the anticipation is palpable, and you can feel tens of thousands of people lean forward, eager for the first step.  And you look in to the eyes of the runner next to you, and you see the miles and the pain and the time and the tears and the failure and the challenge and beginning again and failing and never ever giving up.  It is the human condition, the spirit that keeps us from giving in to what would make us less than what we are meant for.  And then we take the first step, and run with all we have into the space the world has made. 

We will run again.

Hope this finds you testifying,

David

Copyright © 2013 David Smith