“This air is blessed.”

That is the only way I know how to describe the aura, the thrill, and the suffering that is the Boston Marathon.

What is most ironic about this event is that you never learn enough of it. Marathons happen across the world nearly every week in the calendar year.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.photo.gif

Thousands of ardent and steadfast runners tread the toils of twenty-six miles and 385 yards on a frequent basis.

And if it is your first, you will always remember it. But Boston invokes a different memory. Boston is different.




For when you arrive at Logan, or Manchester, or Providence, and you journey forward to the city of Boston, you realize the city stands perfectly still. Waiting for you; She waits for her friends and family to run steadily across the southwest, through America’s finest institutions of higher learning, and amidst the din of the Green Line. A half million spectators coupled with legions of National Guardsmen wait for you.

For there is not one person whom is out on that course; Not the children holding oranges in their soiled palms; Nor the inebriated occupants of White House in Newton; Nor the gritty and angular fire-fighters at the most infamous 90-degree right hand turn in American distance running – Not one of these persons is challenging you. They are encouraging you.

This year at Boston I accomplished a feat I once thought was impossible. It was a chance of fate. But somewhere between the expo and hearing the Blue Angels scream overhead the physical zenith of a nation, I knew this event is unlike any other.

I witnessed agony and apathy, pain and perseverance, crying and conviction. But most of all I witnessed a mass of humanity all move towards one end point. Robert Cheriyout, The Distance Project, and some-former cyclist, all ran on the very streets I did. And yet we all concluded at the very same point on this great planet. Breathe this in.



The crowds are wild. The history is intangible. But the glory is indescribable.

And now it’s over.

It has come once again. And it has been conquered. But there will be a time a little less than a year from now, when I will return to my native soil, and be thinking of the 113th running of this inexplicable manifestation of the human will.




And when I awake from this quiet ambition, the memory of this city’s devotion to our sport will prove once again;

Boston is different.