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| A sunny panorama in London |
The clock reads 8:44 AM, Saturday April 20, 2013. I have just returned from a lovely walk in St James Park near Buckingham Palace, the spring flowers abloom and peaceful here in London. The sun shines through the cool (perfect running temperature) air. In 25 hours, I will begin a 26.2 mile point-to-point journey from Greenwich Park west to the Palace winding along the Thames and over Tower Bridge amongst other famous landmarks. I ran this course last year, and I know my second tour will be at once familiar and entirely different.
As I approach my 40th marathon, a demarkation line has been etched in all of our consciousnesses. That happened 5 days ago at the world shattering end of the Boston Marathon. Like 9/11, 7/7 or, as my mom reminded me, January 28, 1986 when Challenger exploded, this journey is point-to-point as well. Time's arrow is decidedly one directional.
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| Finishing the Boston Marathon in 2009 |
Mentally, I began writing this post even as events unfolded last Monday. Yet, until this morning, I did not even try to start writing. Sure, as I ran on Tuesday and Thursday this week, mentally I composed the words, trying out angles in my mind as to what to inscribe on my blog. I knew that I had to say something. Even if no one reads these words, I cannot let the tragic events impact on me go unwritten. This was emphasized when my friend John sent me a note yesterday wondering if I was ok given that I had not sent out an update to my mailing list. Perhaps, I needed to know of some sort of resolution, as happened Friday in Watertown, before I could really get my head around everything.
