m**t
发帖数: 1956 | 1 guys, you have to train harder and run faster this year. The best way to
respond yesterday's tragedy is to line up at the start line of 2014 boston
marathon and race as fast as you can. It will be such privilege to run 2014
boston marathon, at least for me.
Bombings Heighten Runners’ Commitment to 2014 Boston Race
2013-04-16 21:20:23.209 GMT
(Updates with registration details for Grandma’s Marathon in 14th
paragraph. For more coverage of the bombing, see EXT2 .
By Michael Buteau
April 16 (Bloomberg) -- The 2014 Boston Marathon has moved to the top
of goal lists for runners who are finding a new reason to try to qualify for
the world’s oldest annual 26.2-mile race.
“I didn’t have any desire to run Boston until yesterday,”
James Ford, a 41-year-old runner and triathlete from Memphis, Tennessee,
said in a telephone interview. “Next year, you are going to have more
people than ever. Determination is not something to be messed with.”
Ford, who would need to cut about 1 hour, 45 minutes off his personal-
best time of five hours to qualify for the race, is among the athletes who
are responding to yesterday’s attack with plans to earn a spot on the
starting line in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, instead of running away from it.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” Ford said. “It may happen in 2014
or 2015, but it’s now going to be one of my goals.”
Two bombs exploded near the finish line in Boston yesterday as
recreational runners completed the race, which has been held annually since
1897. Three people were killed and more than 175 were injured, officials
said. One of the dead was an 8-year-old boy, the Boston Globe reported.
Boston police have no suspect or motive.
At least 34 more marathons are scheduled in the U.S. before the end of
April, including in Salt Lake City on April 20 and the Kentucky Derby
Festival Marathon seven days later, according to Marathonguide.com.
Soon after yesterday’s bombing, Justin Herbert, a 26-year- old cross
country and track coach at North Carolina’s Montreat College, created a
community Facebook page for the 2014 race to “honor the victims and tell
the world we will not be deterred.”
‘Not Scared’
“It’s going to backfire on the people who planned this,”
Herbert said in a telephone interview. “Runners are very brave.
We’re not scared of much.”
While Herbert qualified for the 2007 and 2012 Boston marathons, he didn
’t run because of his duties as coach. He said he won’t skip the 2014
event and urged others to join him.
“My goal is to try to encourage people to continue to run and continue
to train and to do so in a manner that is honoring and remembering those
who were victims in this year’s attack,”
Herbert said. “Remember and return.”
Scott Dickey, chief executive of Competitor Group Inc., which owns and
operates 83 running, triathlon and endurance sports events around the world,
said the Boston bombings won’t deter runners.
‘American Psyche’
“I don’t think this was an attack on the marathon or runners, this
was an attack on the American psyche,” Dickey said in a telephone interview
. “But they attacked the wrong industry. If you think about what it takes
to qualify for the Boston Marathon, you’re talking about people that are
pretty tough and pretty gritty already. They are used to being able to
overcome, withstand and resist trauma.”
The issue for many runners not already registered for a marathon
between now and the 2014 race is finding one to train for and finish before
registration closes. This year, Boston registration ended on Oct. 11, one
month after it opened with 27,000 runners accepted. Unlike other marathons,
Boston requires general-entry runners to meet qualifying time standards
based on their age on the race’s scheduled date. Yesterday’s race was the
first year since 1990 that qualifying standards had been made more difficult
by five minutes for all ages.
The June 22 Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, has had 40
registrants in the past two days, the highest two-day total in the past two
weeks, race spokesman Bob Gustafson said in an e-mail.
Race Search
Carmen Brahim, a 40-year-old Ironman triathlete from Alpharetta,
Georgia, said she is now searching for a race to enter to try to qualify in
time. She compared the Boston race to the pinnacle of triathlons, the
Ironman World Championships held annually in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.
“To me, Boston is like Kona,” Brahim said. “Long term, I definitely
wanted to try, but this year it was not something I was thinking of doing at
all. After yesterday, I just decided that would be my goal for the year.”
Brahim moved to the U.S. from Spain in 1996 and was in the Atlanta area
at the time of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing that killed two people
and injured 111. Now with two U.S.-born children, ages 6 and 4, Brahim said
the Boston incident has affected her even more.
“One of the things that attracted me to come here was the fact that I
always saw the United States as a place you can go to make your dreams come
true,” she said in a telephone interview. “What attracts us all to running
is that you have your freedom. You feel that you own everything around you.
Yesterday, it felt like a threat to what I feel when I’m running. I’m not
going to let them think they can take that away.” |
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