The first time I ran a mile, I was 10 years old. My father had undergone a pelvic amputation the previous year from cancer. It was his leg or his life. He chose his life.
There’s something about being a child and watching your father fight to live — watching him make the choice to live with less. Knowing he would never walk his daughter down the aisle but that maybe if the surgery went well, he would be there to watch her.
Watching my father fight cancer and more, watching him learn how to live and be successful in all areas of his life left a resounding impression within me: never give up.
My first mile compacted the foundation my father set for me through his example, and into a sport that constantly tests your ability to never give up. Running became the way I realized the poignancy of this belief.
As I became a better runner, I traveled more: around the state of Illinois, the Midwest, then the southern Appalachians, all for various camps and competitions. Along the way, I ran through all the awakenings I was supposed to run through as a high school girl — the first loves and the first heartbreaks, the finished forever friendships and the parental conflict. With great relief, I can tell you I crossed over the finish line into some clichéd coming of age understandings that made me a better person.
College running taught me a lot about valuing myself. It made me realize that if someone tells me to run at an opportunity to get to where I want to be, I’ll try to sprint through a wall to get there. Knee surgeries, broken bones, the whole nine yards included.
But through college running and the excellent mentoring of my second collegiate cross country coach, Matt Sparks at Southern Illinois University, I learned that, sometimes, the way to win was to be patient. To value who I am as a person over who I am as a runner. I learned to re-understand my identity. To take on different roles on my team. Lead through the choices I make. In fact, don’t lead. Encourage others.
Mostly, running taught me not to give up on myself. I may have been done as a 1,500-meter runner, but I wasn’t done as a runner.
Four years later, I finished the Nike British 10k. I took 44th for the women, out of roughly 10,000 females.
I learned the greatest lessons of my life through running. I learned that all problems, no matter how horrific they seem, have something to offer you. They have lessons you can learn from.
Monday on the eastern coast, there were 26,000 runners from around the world with 26,000 different stories and lessons of how running took them to be where they are in their lives. You would hear the stories of what led them to the Boston Marathon. There would be 26,000 different stories of runners who were children 10-, 15-, 30-some odd years ago, who fell in love with the sport. You would hear of runners who picked it up at 50 years of age. You would hear of mothers overcoming cancer to run this race. Of sons running after coming home from war. You would meet other runners, just like me, waiting for their bodies to heal, waiting for their Boston to happen. You would meet non-runners. People who have no intention of ever putting on running shoes. Just people who admired the sport.
Instead, 26,000 stories — no, all our stories, really — were silenced by explosions.
Three stories, we know, ended forever.
More than 140 other stories are now forever changed, living on less.
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We don’t know who did it, why they did it or what their cause was and, to be frank, I don’t give a flying flip.
You, whoever you are, tried to destroy something that was an amazing force in so many people’s lives. You tried to destroy the stories of thousands of runners, of thousands of their family members and closet friends. You probably didn’t have a connection to the sport. You probably have never put on a pair of running shoes in your life. Running, how it brings people together, families together, and communities together — a nation together. That meant nothing to you.
But that won’t stop the running community. The lessons running teaches us are too powerful. The places running takes us are too great. And the things that we draw from life through the power of our stride, is more powerful than any explosion meant to stop us as runners, or our families, from continuing on as people.
We find ways to cross the finish line.
We will find a way to learn something more powerful from what has happened than your explosion
My heart breaks for family, friends and runners of the Boston Marathon. I cannot express how angry I am that so many stories have been affected. But if any community can find the strength to create something greater from this horrible event, it’s the long distance community and the wonderful and amazing families, friends, fans and appreciators that support the sport.
Shanthi Marie Blanchard was born and raised in Carbondale. She is a recent MS graduate of London School of Economics and Political Science and, of course, an avid runner.