You might have heard that for the first time in 31 years, an American won yesterday’s Boston Marathon men’s division. If all you read was the headline, you might also have wondered if I was that American. Lamentably, though I ran the race, I was not the winner. Instead, that victory went to 38-year-old Meb Keflezighi, who emigrated to America from Eritrea at the tender age of 12. Good for him and good for America.
But more than an American man winning, or Boston-area hopeful Shalene Flanagan coming up short in the women’s race, this year’s race gave the average spectator, the average runner, and the average citizen a chance to feel a part of things. It was a chance to put the ugliness of 2013 behind us. To see that, you need look no further than this photo of Bill Foreman, who decided to drive up from Virginia on Sunday night in order to attempt Monday’s race.
[Photo credit: Essdras M Suarez/The Boston Globe]
Now, I don’t know how it turned out for ol‘ Bill (who appears to have written that “USA” on his face with the “help” of a mirror). The photo’s caption rather hilariously indicates that he was grabbing a smoke during the race, which is not a great sign. Searching in the race results for “Foreman” led to no relevant hits.1 Regardless, however, the mere desire of an elderly veteran seeking to run his first marathon in Boston speaks to exactly how much this race means to so many people. Yesterday, it went off beautifully, and that’s pretty great.
Footnotes:
Fortunately, a cursory glance at the obituaries didn’t turn up anything either. ↩︎
