When I first heard about the bombings in Boston, I was stunned, but I didn’t think of it as shocking as I should have. At the time, there were no fatalities. In my head, I think of anything else as an inconvenience. But injuries can be lifelong affairs. And I’ve now heard of limbs lost, which for a runner is a major tragedy.
I guess it really didn’t sink in as to how tragic this is.
If a bombing happens in the Middle East, I really don’t feel much of anything. I know I should feel sorry for the people killed, but it is so far removed from me, it is hard to feel much. This is where Hamilton’s Rule comes in to play. “The degree of altruistic self-sacrifice that might be expected as being proportional to the degree of relatedness.”
Now, we are dealing with a marathon. These are my people! I should be feeling more. And as time has gone on, I am becoming more involved. I check the news regularly. I want to know the details.
I’m also wondering how many runners were hurt? The bombs couldn’t have been in the streets as they would have been cleared for the race.
I take a certain pride that every real marathon I have run, I have done in a time of around 3:45:00. For me to qualify to run in Boston, I would have to be faster than 3:15:00. And these days, I am concentrating on slower over a much longer distance. The last time I came close to doing a marathon, was when I did the DisneyWorld marathon the day after I did the DisneyWorld half-marathon. I don’t count that as a true marathon though, more of a half-ultra. In any case, my time for that was four hours. Which is ten minutes before the bombs went off in Boston. If I had been there, there is a very good chance I would have been in the area.
Will we need to worry about other marathons in the future?