Boston Marathon elicits feelings of heartbreak, anger and hope

By Justin Anderson

Leslie Hayden had made up her mind; she wasn’t going to come back.

2013 was going to be the last year running the Boston Marathon for the resident of Smithfield, Utah.

“It was a very hard year for me,” Hayden said. “I was going through a divorce, and mentally and physically I was exhausted before I even reached the city of Boston. Me and my husband at the time decided we would still go out to Boston together because it was already paid for, and that this most likely was going to be my last year because it just costs too much, and I’d like to go see other places and run other races elsewhere. I had doubts in my mind that I was going to even be able to finish the race.”

Still she chose to run – she had trained hard for this day and wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of her desire to prove that she could do it.

After she picked up her race packet she soaked in the beauty of the day. The sun was out, and the temperature, as she remembers, was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold.

The race began with a moment of silence for the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, which occurred four months previous to the race.

“I remember a group of us talking about how awful and evil this world has become,” Hayden said. “We started the race, and I remember every mile seemed to be a roller-coaster. One minute I was feeling great, the next I felt like I wasn’t going to make it. I just pushed through those negative feelings and kept on going.”

Hayden remembers reaching the 22nd mile marker and the feelings that came over her.

“I had the strongest feeling of ‘you got this woman, don’t give up. Keep going, keep going,’ I look back and think ‘wow, I have never had that much drive towards the end of a marathon,’ she said. “I strongly believe it was for a reason.”

Her final 4-mile push led her to a marathon time of 3:31:35.

She walked to her bag and got some water and food. When walking to the rental car, she and her husband decided to walk to the car using the next block over from the finish line. She stopped for a moment to find a restroom, and as she walked out of the building the crowds and the lines were gone.

She could hear sirens, and amidst all the noise and confusion she overheard people talking about a possible shooting, and others talking about a bomb at the finish line. She decided to leave for her hotel.

“We started heading back out the doors we came in, and a man was running the other way and yelled at us to not go that way,” she said. “‘Do you know what's going on?’ He yelled at us, telling us bombs went off at the finish line and blew up a bunch of kids. My heart sunk. I think that's when it really hit me that this was really happening.”

Hayden and her husband later left the mall and saw the pandemonium that had ensued. Her thoughts turned to the people she remembered passing during the race and wondered whether or not they were ok.

The next day they made the decision to stay in Rhode Island to get out of the city. Following the tragedy that had just taken place, Hayden felt certain that she would never run in the Boston Marathon again.

While in Rhode Island Hayden spent some time on the beach.

“I walked around looking for seashells for my daughter, thinking about everything,” she said. “That’s when I decided I was going to come back the next year and run the marathon. If I stopped doing what I love doing and living out my goals and aspirations all because I am scared I would just be giving in to these men and letting them win. That was their plan all along – to put fear in the eyes of us Americans and make us fearful of living and doing anything without a thought of them.”

“I am going back this year to prove to them and everyone else, especially myself, that I can and I will take a stand against evil and terrorists. What these men don’t realize is that to be a marathon runner you have to be strong willed and dedicated. If there was any group they shouldn’t have targeted it was us runners. It has just made us a stronger and more tight knit group.”

Hayden is one of many affected by the attacks at the Boston Marathon last year. One such example is Walter Brown of South Jordan, Utah.

Brown has run the Boston Marathon five times. Beginning in 2006, he has run the race every other year. During last year’s marathon, he watched the story unfold through the news.

“I was at work when I found out the bomb hit,” said Brown. “It affected me so much that I had to leave work and go home.”

Boston has been a big part of Brown’s life, and his immediate reaction was anger – anger toward anybody who would want to hurt so many innocent people.

“I knew right then, ‘I’m going, I’m going back next year. I don’t care what it takes I’m going back,’” Brown said. “To prove that these people can’t bully us around, they’ve messed with the wrong people.”

“The thing that hit me the most is Boston is not a typical marathon,” he said. “Not everyone that runs a marathon can get in this marathon, they have to prove themselves. This is something you have to work hard to get to. For someone to bomb a marathon venue where every one of those participants has busted their butt to get there – it is the wrong venue to hit.”

For Brown, the race will be about so much more than running 26.2 miles.

The route is almost a journey through time for Brown, who mentioned that part of the race takes the same path that Paul Revere took on his famous ride. He and Hayden will run across the city where the famous tea party took place, which, eventually led to the American Revolution. Boston is famous for being the city that showed America’s strength and determination to stand for what it believed in. This Monday runners will line up along the starting line of the marathon, and announce to the world once again that, when in times of trouble, average Americans can unite to work toward a cause greater than themselves.

“They can take our possessions, they can take our bodies, they can kill us, Brown said” “But they are not going to take the spirit away from what is there.”