We Run Strong. We Keep Going.

Before I entered Boston Marathon 2013, I knew I was signing up for a lot more than just any road race or even any marathon.

Anyone who runs, or has been around runners — OK, maybe anyone who reads — knows that the Boston Marathon is something special. It’s a living piece of history, a 117-year story of fierce rivalries, individual determination and competition, tied together in the bonds of athletic camaraderie. It’s a chance for Average Joe to move up from the local road races and fun runs to race the same course with the best in the world.

Think about that. What are the chances that your best football player from High School will end up on the field with the NFL? Or that you or your buddy who plays basketball will end up shooting hoops for the Bulls or the Heat?

From the 2:05 elite racers to the folks who go through it in five hours, runners of all abilities who get in the corrals in Hopkinton will get the chance to squeeze out all they’ve got along the way to the Boylston Street finish line.

That dedication is matched only by the enthusiasm of the onlookers, who screamed louder for me than my leg muscles screamed at me as I pounded down the final miles after Heartbreak Hill.

There was always an arm stretched out to offer a cup of Gatorade or a high five; there were the med tents, ready for people who needed them; there were the volunteers, the cops and BAA professionals who somehow organize and orchestrate the event along the 26.2 mile race course aimed straight into downtown Boston.

Like so many of the people who crowded at the start Monday, this was an event that I had anticipated for a long time. I had spent close to half of a year in training and years of running before that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I planned to run Boston back when I was 12 and saw went out to see my dad run that race. At the time, I doubt that I had done anything more than four miles and couldn’t imagine what it would be like to do more than six times that distance.

When I crossed the start-line Monday, a 24-year-old man, I had gone that distance three times in previous marathons. Even so, I knew that Boston on Patriot’s Day would be a new animal entirely.

It started with the crush of eager runners in athlete’s village before the race. Around 25,000 competitors had come to Hopkinton from all around the world. We had trained hard to be the best we could be on our home turf, had worked to get a reputation at the local road races and fun runs.  But now there were countless other people like us, people who could match or beat our times, who had made the same sacrifices and suffered the same agonies of self-doubt about whether we could go the distance or hold ourselves to the pace. All but a few of us would see many, many sets of runners in front of us as we ran. It was a little humbling.

And in my mind, it was no less impressive that my 63-year-old father was coming back to run his first Boston Marathon in years and his 10^th marathon overall. He and several of our friends from Southeastern CT have been raising money to build a statue commemorating local hero and 1957 Boston Marathon winner John Kelley who died in 2011.

It was going to be a slower pace for my dad and our friend Phil, whose goal was to reach the finish line and not worry so much about the overall time. Both have had their injuries and neither was dead sure whether they would finish the race. Nonetheless, they were determined to give it all they had. I was damn proud to have my father running in my first Boston Marathon.

As for me, my sites were set on setting a personal record on the Boston course. I’d be happy with anything below 2:45:44, I figured, but I decided to aim for 6:15 miles, which would put me at about a 2:43-minute marathon. The trick would be to hold the right pace and not to get carried away by the temptation to match the more ambitious runners.

It was pretty hard not to get pumped up by the cheers along the sidelines. A bunch of kids were giving high-fives, people were playing radios on their front lawns. I let myself relax and enjoy the early marathon vibe. When I crossed the first mile in 6:55, I didn’t let myself freak out because I was slower than pace. I would crank this one up gradually, I decided, so that everything would be warmed up when I hit top speed.

Meanwhile, there were more high-fives to give, more cheers to take in. It made me feel more amped up than ever.

After I went by one particularly deafening section of spectators, I turned to the guy next to me.

“Hell yeah,” I told him.

“Hell yeah,” he agreed.

There was no loneliness of the long distance runner where I was. People talked happily with total strangers, enjoying the moment.

At around the 5K-mark I heard a small commotion behind me.

“Blind runner, coming through! Blind runner, on your left!”

Blind Runner, a scraggly haired woman, ran alongside a guide who was giving her directions about the course ahead and sounding the warning to other runners nearby. The guide sounded a bit winded though; he was slowing down and Blind Runner was speeding up. She told him that she was going to go for it.

“Really fast blind runner coming through!” he gasped and fell behind.

No sooner had she lost her guide, than several other runners asked her if they could help.

She told us she had some eyesight and could see some of what was directly in front of her. There was another pace runner waiting for her at the 10K mark.

“Well, you’ve got about thirty yards of space right in front of you,” one guy said. He’d be willing to help get her through the miles ahead if he wanted. She agreed, but only if she wouldn’t be holding him back. No way, the guy said. She was hitting the perfect pace.

I watched them pull ahead down the course, she and the new guide pounding down the course toward 10K.

“Look out! Blind runner coming through!”

As I got close to Mile 13, I heard a distant din of people shouting and cheering, a noise that grew louder as I worked my way up the crest of a hill. I was approaching the Wellesley Scream Tunnel.

Traditionally students at the all-female college get out to the course to cheer (very loudly) for the runners and also solicit kisses.

Forget the Gatorade stop; here was a surefire energy boost right before the halfway mark in the marathon.

Another thing to consider; just as there are some people who will come to a full stop at the water tables I’ve always been one to grab the cup and run. It’s a little messier, but it keeps the momentum going and gets the job done most of the time. I figured I could apply a similar strategy at Wellesley where hundreds of students with signs were going wild for the runners.

Who to choose? OK, howabout with the sign that says she loves beards?

 I was running too fast and ended up kissing someone else, but who cares? Right on the lips! Such accuracy!

I get running again but decide to make one more kiss stop before I took on the second half of the marathon.

OK, I definitely should have slowed down that time. Almost head butted her.

Some runners were taking more time at the Wellesley stop than others. I get back in the pack and start picking up the pace a bit, even as the dreaded hills of Newton loomed on the course ahead.

The closer I got to Boston, the more people were cheering on the sidelines. I had left enough energy in the tank so that I could get over the hills of Newton and up to Heartbreak Hill without losing my speed. The fact that the spectators were cheering like crazy didn’t hurt either.

 Suddenly I heard my name from the sidelines, and a GO NADS cheer from my friends Max and Zack, fellow members of the North American Distance Squad.

It was all downhill from there, as the saying goes. I let my legs and gravity do the work. The muscles ached, as did my feet.

Intellectually, I knew that I was putting my body under a lot of strain, that I couldn’t keep doing this for much longer. But that fatigue was nothing compared to the adrenaline I got from the mob of cheering onlookers, a wave of energy, which were almost too much to handle at times.

Every couple hundred yards, someone would spot my number.

“Yeah! C’mon 685!” “Let’s go 685!”

My legs pounded the asphalt, taking me faster than I had run at any point in the race. Pure autopilot. Totally high. I knew I was running exactly the race that I wanted to run.

I went beneath a highway underpass and saw the Citgo sign near the finish. I tweaked the speed up slightly, feeling like a rickety machine going to its maximum — push it too hard and everything flies apart.

When I pulled onto Boylston Street, I pumped my arms faster so that my legs would move with them. There was only a quarter mile to go, but it was a small lifetime. Then my foot went over the sensor at the finish line and I could rest at last.

I crossed the line in 2:42:20: for a new personal record and 361^st place. I was exhausted. I was pumped.

I walked down the chutes in a happy daze, collecting the free food and drink. Walking sucked, but if I stopped walking I knew I wouldn’t want to walk for a long time.

I got to meeting area B and slumped down against the wall with some of the other runners, Soon enough, I saw my buddy Matt who had snapped some pictures of me coming in at the finish line, along with some shots of the front runners.

Not long after, I saw Connecticut runners Spy and Stan, who had run 2:49 and 2:55 races. We exchanged our sweaty handshakes and then they sat down for some much needed rest.

I knew my dad was on the course, though I figured I could hobble back to Matt’s apartment on Beacon Street, and get cleaned up. Later I could get back to the finish to meet him there. Then I’d join some of the Connecticut runners for drinks at a pub downtown.

That’s the way the story should have ended, but unfortunately it isn’t how the story ends.

I showered up back at the apartment, and grabbed a celebratory beer. Matt pulled up the runner tracking page on the BAA website that showed my dad was going down the course a lot faster than I’d expected him to be running.

I realized I would have to hustle it back to the finish area to meet him at the reunion area nearby. It was out of the question that I would be able to see him go across the line where the crowds were bound to be impenetrable.

As I was getting ready to head out the door, I got a text from a friend of mine in Gillette, asking if I had heard about the blasts at the finish line.  Then he called my phone asking if I was all right. No one was sure about what was happening, but it sounded like there might have been a terrorist attack.

Sirens were going off around town. Then texts started to roll in from friends, asking if I was OK, if I knew what was going on.

I had no idea what was going on, but I already had a bad feeling in the pit of my gut. Hopefully, it was just some jackass with fireworks, I told Matt. At a large event like that, it was easy for confusion.

At the same time, I started worrying about my father who was on the course and was bound to have been close to the incident.

This is probably not what your supposed to do, I told Matt, but I want to head back there and see if I can find my dad.

Matt agreed that going back might not be the brightest thing, but went with me as I started back out into the city.

I quickly called my mom at home, to let her know I was fine, and asked her for my dad’s cell phone number which I didn’t have since he never uses it. He didn’t pick up when I called, so I figured he was either still on the course or he hadn’t gotten to his bag with his cell phone yet.

I noticed that my voicemail was full of messages and tried to dial out. No dice. The signal wasn’t going through. I remembered that cell phone lines tended to get jammed up in disasters when everyone tries to make phone calls. The streets were filled with people dialing numbers, trying to let friends and family know that they were OK.

The streets were closed off as Matt and I got closer to the finish line. We were cut off. 

One thing I know about disaster communications is that text messages take up far less bandwidth than calls. Texts go through when calls do not.

Then I got a text from a friend telling me to get on Facebook to tell everyone I was all right. That way, fewer people would try to call and there would also be more bandwidth available to first responders. With the lines closed, there was nothing else to do.

We went up to the apartment and I posted a message. For the next couple of hours, I was in contact with worried friends over text messages, trying to figure out if anyone had word from my dad or Phil.

Finally, I heard from my mom that he had been turned off the course about half a mile from the finish line. Thank God, I thought. Even through my relief, I thought about how infuriating it must have been to wait so many years, to get so close to the line and then have to turn around because of this.

I still didn’t know where he was headed, if we were going to see each other or if he was going to leave town. Hours later, we finally got in touch when he and Phil were headed down the interstate back to Connecticut. People had given them food and garbage bags that they could wear against the wind. Then they had to walk around the finish line for an extra mile to where there were buses parked near Boston Public Garden.

We were both to hear glad the other was safe, both furious at the cowardly act, which had tarnished the day.

The finish line didn’t matter, I told him. You ran the full marathon.

I stayed at Matt's place that night where I hit the cot just like the proverbial sack of bricks.

The next day, I walked through town on stiff legs, under bright blue skies. Visitors wore their yellow and blue marathon jackets on the streets and posed for pictures in front of the historic buildings with medals around their necks.

Life seemed to be moving on. A breakfast place that I visited with Matt and my friend Zack was filled to the brim with runners. We passed by people who were still commuting between their offices in the skyscrapers going to their apartments, in the quaint neighborhoods and in the surrounding towns. We were also able to take the T over to the Museum of Fine art, which had offered free admission to visitors.

Other people were already out for runs in the streets and in the parks, preparing for the next big race.

The barricades were still up around Copley Square, where people had put flowers around the fences.

Nearby, trucks from the major news stations pointed their antennae at the sky to tell the world about the people who died, the people injured horribly in the blasts and the sorrow of a city.

I knew I had been lucky.

No doubt, many runners will remember the pain and confusion that we felt on Monday, but just as it is appropriate to mourn, I hope that we can all remember the thousands of things that went right on Monday, including the heroism of those who rushed forward to help people after the blasts.

 I want to remember the kinship I felt with the other runners who gave their best on the course and the immense outpouring of support from spectators in Boston and the outlying towns. The senseless act of violence has no hope of matching an event that carries so much energy, momentum and will. A marathon is, after all, about perseverance and overcoming challenges.

This won’t stop us. We’re still going strong.