About Boston

Over the last week I have thought long and hard, contemplating the right words to describe my experience with this year's Boston Marathon and the only two words I have come up with that seem the least bit adequate are: Holy. Shit.

My apologies up front for this kind of language but really, I don't know how else to tell the story without starting there because my story was certainly filled with an experience of the holy. And yet it ended like the story of so many others, with a knee jerk reaction: Holy Shit!

There were over 27,000 people running this year in the Boston Marathon which means there are over 27,000 personal stories and experiences out there which will, for all intents and purposes, be completely overshadowed by the weight of what took place. No one was asking you, "How did you do?" followed by mutual rejoicing or wallowing, depending on your answer. The questions everyone asked were, "Did you finish?" and/or "Where were you when it happened?"

But as one of my good running friends out in CA said recently: Screw it. By which I believe she meant: Screw you, terror! We won't let you defeat us by going silent about our marathon experience and accomplishments. There are so many stories out there and many, if not most of them, mine included, were quite frankly very, very positive ..... at least until the bombs.

All this is to say, I will be posting my experience as it unfolded. In order to do my part of the story justice, I need to break it up into two sections: BB (Before Bombs) and AB (After Bombs).  I will do my best to be respectful of the few who died, the hundreds who were injured and the thousands of disappointed and traumatized individuals affected by this. I will try not to sound callous or insensitive, but, I also think it is right to celebrate the exhilarating moments and joy that were laid before me. And quite honestly, some of it was pretty darn funny in retrospect. Why shouldn't we embrace those moments, too? They are every bit a part of the story. And it is a story worth telling, no matter where you were, or whether or not you crossed the finish line.

Ok, fasten your seat belt because the ride's about to begin!