Monday was at once the best day and the worst day. I know many people have taken time to put pen to paper – well more like fingers to keyboard, does anyone write anymore?- to talk about their experiences at the Boston Marathon on April 15th. Most of them start as mine does, packing the night before, making sure everything is in the yellow bag.
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Catching a bus with their team or with a group of strangers all of whom become friends, starting the race with 22,000 others, having a good race or a bad race, and then at around 2:50 having the wheels completely come off. My day started similarly. I took a car as I was broadcasting from the starting line, so my amazing driver Katherine picked me up at 4 and drove me in to Hopkinton.
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We made small talk about the show, about why I was running, general small talk amongst ladies. I even caught a cat nap. I got to the BAA headquarters right at the starting line. It’s pretty quiet that early in the morning. It was still dark out and the temps were in the low 30′s.
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TV camera lights illuminated the dark, volunteers in bright yellow jackets scurried about setting up barricades, searching out coffee, and preparing for the deluge of runners that was a few hours away. At 5am groups of military personnel start their march to Boston in full gear including a pack filled to the gills.
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They have no escort, they have no one cheering as they leave, they have only glow sticks on the back of their packs and a road guard with a flag. I scream a lot as these brave men and women file by. I am nervous about my run today, but I look at these camouflaged heroes and realize WHY I’m really here and take a deep breath and thank the Universe for these amazing people who do what they do every day and decide to take a 26.2 mile walk in the early hours of the morning. People start arriving, music starts playing, lines start forming at the hundreds of port-a-potties, and there is a palpable buzz, an energy you can feel. It’s the nerves of thousands of runners ready to take on the most famous course in all of marathons. The 26.2 miles that travels through Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, Brookline and then into Boston where you make the only two turns in the course – right on Hereford, left on Boylston.
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When I was done with my broadcasting duties I was to head over to my team – Boston Children’s Hospital to change and get ready to run. I grabbed my yellow bag and flung it over my shoulder and watched it tear completely in half and as if in slow motion, all my belongings go flying through the air. Ugh. My engineer, Jason, grabbed some gaffers tape and we did the best we could to put it back together again.
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At the team meeting place (which is in a Masonic Temple – there is some Dan Brown Da Vinci Theory stuff in there let me tell you) I got changed, sunscreened, had my name written on my arm, helped others write on theirs, had our team meeting and group picture and warmed up. We were 200 strong and ready to go.
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We had qualified runners and folks who would walk the course but we were all equals, we had already won by raising over a million dollars for this hospital we all love so much. We were put into our corral (which is just what it sounds like) packed in like sardines. Waving to the cameras, we crossed the starting line, pressed start on our fancy watches and headed into the breach.
I would love to tell you mile by mile about the race. About how many guys pee in the woods in the first couple of miles, about bar you pass where a hundred people are singing along to Sweet Caroline while standing on kegs as you pass, about DJ WIN a guy I saw spinning records on someones porch in Framingham, about the kids who held Twizzlers and orange slices in their sweaty little hands to give you to encourage you to keep going, about the strangers who screamed my name when I passed by, about the friends who found me along they way and dried my tears as I cried in the last few miles because I knew I wasn’t going to make it, about the woman I’d met twice in my life who said she’d walk the rest of the way into Boston with me (we were at mile 15) or as far as I could make it. And about meeting up with my Children’s cheering group, seeing my patient partners Sara and Emily come out and hug me as I cried in pain.
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But something else happened.
I was between mile 16 and 17 when my knee gave out and my body said stop. I was inconsolable. My friend Tracy was calling her husband to come get us and take me to the Westin to meet up with my team when my phone rang. It was my co-host, Salt, telling me he didn’t want to alarm me but there had been an explosion at the finish line. To be completely honest, I thought he was joking. I was pretty wrapped up in my own emotion at the time. I’ve never quit anything, and the fact that I wasn’t going to finish this race was eating away at my heart. Little did I know. At this point my phone was going crazy, the girl we were walking with was on her phone crying and people around us were filling in the blank parts. We were all a little numb and didn’t know what to do or think. John came to get us and brought us to their home. They propped my up on the couch, gave me ice for my screaming knee, a sweatshirt to warm me (as I was still in my singlet) and a glass of wine to calm me. I know, not the best recovery drink, but it was just what I needed. We sat in stunned silence watching TV. The same loop over and over of people cheering and smiling one minute and in the same moment absolute chaos. There was screaming and blood and smoke. First responders racing people in wheelchairs to help. News reporters shaking off shock to bring as much information as they could to us. I received a hundred text messages, emails, Facebook and Twitter posts asking if I was ok. Friends I haven’t’ talked to in years, people in Germany and England. It was overwhelming. It was surreal to watch my city be hurt. It was painful to watch and be unable to do anything. My heart was and remains heavy.
My boyfriend came to pick me up. He stayed with us for a while watching then brought me home. I limped up to the shower and I cried. Harder than I have cried in years. I cried for those injured. I cried for my city. I cried for the innocence that was lost. I cried thanking the Universe that my friends weren’t hurt, I cried. And I didn’t stop.
Work the next day was hard. Talking about the events so fresh was painful but cathartic. Listeners shared stories of their day. They were there, they were injured, they were heroes. When I arrived home that day there were flowers waiting for me from Katherine, the woman who had driven me to the starting line.
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The memories I will carry of this day are melancholy. I will always remember the images of destruction, but the images that will stay with me forever are those of the people running into harms way to help others. The people opening their homes to runners who had nowhere to go. The love that was shown to Boston from the rest of the world.
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Boston, I wasn’t born here, but I’m proud to be part of you today. I am humbled by your love and your strength continues to inspire me. #bostonstrong
And Boston Marathon 2014, I’ll see you at the starting line.
SEE ALSO: Stephen Colbert: You Messed With The Wrong City
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