What can I say about the Boston Marathon? Not much that hasn’t
already been said. The story of how I ran from Hopkinton to Boylston has been
told the same way a hundred thousand times. I coasted out of the start line
through the half feeling like I controlled the world and then everything came
crashing down on the hills in Newton. The turning left onto Boylston put the
spring back into my step to cross the line slower than the time I qualified with
but happy to have been a part of the Boston Marathon. Every word of my
experience out on the course is cliché so I won’t bother going into more
detail.
What I can say though is that I did not earn a Boston
Marathon finisher medal on Monday. That belongs entirely to Sarah. While work
disrupted my training in December, January, February and early March, my
obsession with this race could not have been easy to handle and my constant
exhaustion and pain could not have helped either. Somehow, Sarah held
everything together around the house, got me to the start line in one piece,
organized both sides of the family for race day and our post-race Easter
lasagna dinner, has taken care of our new puppy (Freddie) and helped me through
the agony of the oozing blistered shoulders I brought home as a memento of not
putting on sunblock before the race.
To my ears, saying that this finisher medal belongs to Sarah
sounds insultingly trivializing of how much she has done. All else I can say is
I love you and thank you.
