On Monday, I was there. I crossed the "H" on that famous finish line at 1:15 p.m. It wasn't my best time or my best-run race, but it was the greatest running experience of my life.
Each town along the way comes out to support the athletes; each burg shows its own character and flavor, from rowdy Framingham to wild Wellesley. The course itself is ideal, with enough downhills early to beat up your legs before you're sent up the challenging Hills of Newton, culminating in the (in)famous Heartbreak Hill.
The sight of twenty-seven thousand runners, each of whom has trained and striven just to earn the right to run the race, is an inspirational testament human aspiration and discipline. The sight of a half million volunteers cheering and passing out water to the runners speaks to our unity and our camaraderie. To the kid who gave me an orange at mile 23, when I'd hit the wall and was hobbling at a snail's pace: thank you.
Thank you to the organizers who put on the best marathon on the planet. Thank you to the volunteers who made it possible. Thank you to the other runners who invested their lives in running the race. Every year, there is incredible goodness at every marathon on the planet, but the goodness at Boston is unique.
And then this year, there was unique and unthinkable evil.
In a way, that evil overshadows everything else. I keep thinking of the day I finished my first marathon and my daughter stood near the finish line, waiting for Dad. The family of Martin Richards lost him when he was doing that exact same thing. In a way, nothing can compare with the grief and anguish inflicted on the victims and their families.
In a way, it seems odd, or even wrong, then, to write about the perfection of the Boston Marathon. In another way, however, I think it's exactly right.
On the fifteenth of April, there was more good in Boston than evil. Half a million human beings came out to celebrate the nobler aspects of our nature; two monsters attacked them. Two madmen inflicted suffering; thousands of heroes rushed to provide rescue and aid.
Sometimes we forget how much goodness there is in the world. Every time a father picks up his child in his arms, every good meal with friends, every long run through the woods on a beautiful day... these moments are no less miraculous just because they are common.
Our humanity springs from a common belief: Good can triumph, and should triumph, and does triumph over evil. If we believe it deeply, then let us believe it about the 117th Boston Marathon. There was meaning -- real, valuable, profound meaning in the running of the race. Let us neither forget nor minimize the meaning we can make from the marathon, and from the rescue that followed; instead, let us remember and celebrate that goodness, even in the face of evil.
By focusing on the good, I hope to remind myself of the most important truths we can believe: if there was more good than evil on Monday in Boston, there is more good than evil in this world.
