Running While Black: Finding Freedom in a Sport That Wasn't Built for Us

by Alison Mariella Désir

Around me, I heard a few people say they couldn’t believe they’d finished Boston. All I felt walking through the finishing chute was relief at being done. Other marathons ranked higher than this experience for me. Rock ’n’ Roll San Diego, because it was my first marathon and represented a turning point in my life. The New York City Marathon, because it lives up to the inclusive spirit it was built on; the race was run as four loops around Central Park until 1976, when the organizers pulled it out of the park and onto all five boroughs so that more people could participate. I felt that energy when I ran it, both in the race’s spirit and in the bricks-and-mortar of each beautiful and diverse neighborhood. At Boston, I had no sense of achievement other than another marathon completed. If Boston truly was the pinnacle of running, then I would have experienced its specialness. But you have to buy into the idea of exclusivity to feel it.