Scott Helman - Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the Citys Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice

Laced up and pointed toward the sea

W hat you see first, after the starting guns crack, is a column of bobbing runners, thousands of them, surging downhill on a twisting two-lane road, a kinetic rainbow of tank tops, radiant T-shirts, race-day costumes, visors, headbands, and hats. It is a thrilling sight every year, these opening moments of the Boston Marathon, in a part of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, known as Cookies Corner, named for a longtime townie who used to man the starting line. Here, the fast and the slow, the agile and the aging, the big names and the also-rans all begin their unison descent to Bostons Copley Square, 26.2 miles away in the heart of the city.

Runners have assembled at this spot for decades, carrying their hopes, their mettle, and their anxieties under the bib numbers on their chests. Each has imagined that exultant moment at the finish, muscles aching, arms thrust skyward, a sweet sensation of relief and satisfaction. But those visions begin here, 490 feet above sea level, with a dash over the letters that say, simply, START , hand-stenciled across a road just thirty-nine feet wide, nestled between a tranquil town green and a weathered cemetery. Hopkintons small-town charm signals just how far away the finish line lies, on Boylston Street, a crowded thoroughfare at the feet of Bostons tallest skyscrapers. Indeed, its easy to forget, at the start, the hard realities of running 26.2 miles, the difficult hours that always come. Adrenaline throbs beneath the skin. The crowd is expectant, its enthusiasm infectious. All this excitement, this unique sensation of participating in the worlds most storied road race, puts air under your feet: For the first few miles, you feel as though youre floating.

The Boston Marathon, for many runners, is the crown jewel of road races, difficult to qualify for but a joy to run once youre in. It is not, however, just the province of elites. The magic of the Boston Marathon is the breadth of participation, its invitation to both top athletes and recreational runners competing for charity. There is room for both Shalane Flanagan, one of the countrys leading woman runners, and Orange Man, aka Alain Ferry, a Boston Web entrepreneur who sometimes runs in his gleaming, full-body spandex suit, stopping along the way to take pictures with friends, dance, and high-five spectators, downing beers as he goes. The race is at once a collective and deeply personal endeavor, the confluence of thousands of individual goals, stories, causes, experiences, triumphs, and disappointments.

At heart, the Boston Marathon honors something very simple. It celebrates lifes constructive forces: good health, fellowship, hard work, discipline, philanthropy, and a belief that we can push ourselves to greater heights, especially alongside others reaching for them, too. In the words of Olympic champion Frank Shorter, Running is an affirmative act. To line up in Hopkinton is to put your hand up and say: Me, too.

Some run to raise money for causes close to their heartscancer, Alzheimers, autismoften competing in the name or memory of a loved one. Some hope to crack the top spots, to cement their status in the running hierarchy. Some aspire just to make it to the finish, a feat they will brag about to friends and relatives over backyard beers, or with an oval 26.2 sticker on the bumper of their car. Most approach the start knowing that out there, along the snaking course, are spouses, children, parents, neighbors, cousins, siblings, coworkers. They know much of Greater Boston will be out there, too, with cheers, whistles, bongo drums, homemade signs, kelly green Boston Celtics T-shirts, high fives, water bottles, orange slices, Gatorade, energy gel, dogs, babies, singing, and beer. In a sense, there are no spectators; everyone is a participant, part of a time-tested ritual on the most cherished day of the Boston calendar.

Every April, Massachusetts halts to mark Patriots Day, as it has for more than a century, in part to commemorate the opening battles of the Revolutionary War. The whiff of revolution has long faded, but the spirit of the old town enduresplucky, proudly independent, and fiercely protective of tradition. And there is hardly a bigger tradition than Marathon Monday. The day typically kicks off spring break for public school students statewide. It heralds the arrival of a hard-earned spring. It brings a special morning game for the beloved Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Its a chance to breathe in a place that defines high-strung, a chance for Boston to put aside, at least for a moment, its tribalism and fractiousness, to welcome outsiders to a town not always known for its hospitality. To celebrate the top runners but also the stragglers, the strivers, and the hobbyists, all of them laced up and pointed toward the sea.