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We had crossed the line in 4:03. The clock above the line now read 4:09. If he had walked that last mile, as he had intended to (and probably believed he would until the moment he refused to do it), we would most likely still have been on the course, approaching the line just then. A woman passed me on my left, one of the many exhausted runners streaming around us, as we started to finally walk away from the line, farther into the chute and toward its rewards. There was a very loud noise.
Oh, right, it was *that* Boston Marathon! I’d forgotten that he was so close (in time and place) to the bomb.
A horse, obviously, can outrun a human, but a human can run longer without tiring, even beating the horse in a marathon, at least on a hot day. (Horses overheat; we sweat.)
Wait, really? So the guy who crazily chose to be the first to run the Western States 100 on foot could’ve actually won?
But then I was struck with a sudden memory: It was three years earlier, and I was with my middle daughter, the same one who was now urging me to move out of the house so that everybody would stop being so mad.
we could see the last straggling students entering the school, and the teacher’s aide about to close the doors. We would be locked outside, forced to go around to the office to get (another) set of late passes, unless . . . “Papa! Use your running powers!” she shouted. I crouched, I smiled, and then I flew.
My domestic situation had deteriorated even further, and my home had turned into an unwilling host that was trying to eject me as if I were an infectious cell. I was less spoken to than spoken at. My absence was wished for so often and so vividly by my wife that the relief of giving in and leaving was greater than the satisfaction of defying her and staying.
Peter Sagal may not be all that nice of a guy.
Sometimes, of course, these perorations are quite personal. In the declining years of my marriage, as our fights became more constant, and more frustrating, my runs became the place where I could say the things I was either too weak or wisely cautious to say out loud, condemnations and defenses that were never contradicted or interrupted because I was saying them into the air. On my runs, unlike in real life, there are no rebuttals, no counterarguments, no ripostes beginning with “Well, how about the time you—”
Wait, he used runs to rehash—or rehearse for?—fighting with his wife. What a waste.
SIEGEL: Well, Peter Sagal, thank you very much. You’re well, I hope. I mean, you didn’t get injured . . . SAGAL: I’m perfectly fine, and I’m very proud to say that I escorted a blind runner, named William Greer, to his first Boston Marathon finish. I’m very proud of that.
Another person might’ve said that he was proud of *William*...
Reading this now, I’m both pleased and ashamed that I took the opportunity of a live breaking news hit to brag about my successful guiding. Why didn’t I just say, “Hi, Mom!”
Ok a bit of self-awareness there.
and turned down a chance to appear on Glenn Beck’s network, TheBlaze. Okay, I didn’t just turn down TheBlaze, I told the intermediary who passed on the invite to tell TheBlaze that if I were the last potential guest on earth, and they the last network, that would be the end of the national media. Highlight of the afternoon, actually.
Way to build bridges, man. ;) Also good to know that Glenn Beck’s staff listen to NPR!
the race clock, marking the elapsed time since the start of our wave, read 4:09. I looked at our finish time, still on my running watch: 4:04. I thought about that.
(If William has walked instead of run the last bit of the race, they likely would both be dead.)
We crossed the line at 4:04. The bomb went off as the clock read 4:09. Five minutes later. Which might well have been the five minutes that William would have needed to walk those last miserable blocks, had he given in to the urgings of his hip, gut, and mind. But he ran the bravest and toughest mile of his life, not even able to see clearly what he was doing, just because he wanted to be able to say he did it, and by doing so, he crossed the line alive.
I have really sore legs. I am ready to start training for the next marathon, and I’m going to have a lot more long runs. I had the speed, I just need to really increase my endurance. Thanks very much for being my sighted guide; you made the marathon a great pleasure. The only problem[s] were the bombs.
Wow that witty William.
furnished with the unwanted furniture from my former home, and those pieces that were unequivocally mine, like the armchair I won on Jeopardy! in 1988—but
Wait wait, what is this? A) he was on jeopardy!, presumably before being well-known and thus as a ‘regular’ contestant b) did he win? (Presumably not) c) how does one win an armchair on jeopardy! (I always though it was cash cash cash winnings—perhaps an experiment in product placement along the lines of the price is right?)? These questions must be answered.
My friend Patti had told me that, as the daughter of divorce herself, the thing that most wounded her was that her father moved into a new home so small it didn’t have a room for her, so I was determined to buy myself a large house with rooms for all three of my daughters. Then again, Patti was also my Realtor.
This particular table was an old, worn IKEA laminated pine kitchen table from my former home, one that got stored rather than thrown out when it was replaced because our family had once spent an evening decorating it with painted pictures of our place settings, surrounded by our names.
Five places, each with a tempera paint illustration of a favorite meal, done in styles that befit our ages and talent, “Mama” and “Papa” and the names of our three children, all frozen in a moment of greater happiness, some six years before. It was one of the old pieces of furniture I was delighted to claim. So, on my first night living alone, I sat at my place, marked “Papa,” and ate my meal, on the souvenir of my family.
I'm crying a little bit now.
