Monday, 15 April 2013

Boston Marathon 2013 - Don't let the bastards win

For anybody who has ever run a marathon, a half marathon, 10K or just jogs for fun, and for those who turn out to watch and cheer and support those who do, this is an attack on every one of them.
The Boston Marathon is a truly international event, 96 countries represented among 27,000 people and over 200 runners from the UK alone.
These are just people like all of us, with hopes and aspirations for the day, been in training for months, maybe years, pinning their courage to their chests and fulfilling a dream.
The bombs went off at the finish line just four hours in, when the majority of club runners and so-called 'fun runners' would have been heading for the line, in fact the main bulk of pack following the elite finishers.
People who have been fundraising for weeks, hosting coffee morning, quiz nights and karaoke nights to help hit their targets for people with cancer, heart disease, mental health issues, children's charities, overseas aid charities, local hospices and probably the local church spire appeal.
People who have found more courage to carry out a single act of alturism than any of the cowards who planted bombs and set them to go off to cause the maximum amount of pain and death.
Fuckers.
So, in recent days and weeks I've been moping about whingeing that I'm not fit enough to run the marathon I'm training for, or that I can't find the motivation to get myself out and go running, and thinking that maybe I should downgrade to a half marathon in Edinburgh on May 26.
But following today's tragedy, and that of the young runner who died taking part in the Brighton Marathon at the weekend, it would seem the only fitting tribute anybody can pay is to keep going and put aside any trivial niggles to make sure we honour their memories. And don't let the bastards win.

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