The Art of Running By Colleen Yorke: boston marathon

When Samantha lost her leg, the news that a prosthetic leg will help her to walk again did not provide much comfort: "The pain in my leg was nothing compared to the one in my heart." Sam lives to run. And eventually she does, trading her wheelchair for crutches. Her crutches for a temporary prosthetic leg. Her temporary leg for a better leg. And finally, her better leg for a running leg. We all have our hurdles in life. And we have our dreams.

Making dreams come true takes patience, dedication, discipline, and determination. Maybe that is why many of us like running so much. We get out of it what we put into it, one step a time. This year I have the privilege and honor to be an ambassador for the Asics 2015 Los Angeles Marathon. I also am in my first year of law school. Needless to say, time is a balance act. While last year I focused on achieving personal records and putting in the mileage, training for the race is different this year. This year is all about running, taking in a city I love and I finally call "home". The struggle of running 26.2 miles is obvious, emotions flow freely, and most of the competition is with ourselves. But every year again, I am inspired by the stories surrounding the Los Angeles Marathon. Dreams in all colors and sizes. Running, I learn again and again, is more than a sport. It is life.

"If you run, you are a runner. It doesn’t matter how fast or how far. It doesn’t matter if today is your first day or if you’ve been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership to get. You just run." - John Bingham

A year ago, twin explosions left 3 people dead and more than 260 wounded in Boston, today over 35,000 runners returned to take back the nation’s oldest marathon and to run for those, who couldn’t.

This year, for the first time since 1983 an American broke through the finish line of the most profiled marathon race in the world, just seconds before Kenya’s own Wilson Chebet. Meb Keflezighi, who has finished 13 career marathons under 2:12, is an UCLA alumni and three-time Olympian. Defending champion Rita Jeptoo of Kenya, who was the top female marathoner in the world in 2013, won the 2014 Boston Marathon for the second time with an official time of 2:18:57, a new course record.

The biographies of the top fifteen finishers, both men and women, are as diverse as they are similar in background and upbringing. For some, running meant escaping a life of hardship, of little income and very few opportunities. For others winning a medal seems to be only a natural consequence of years spent living and training with family athlete champions, and for some it is a combination of the relentless input of ability, skill, and racing intelligence and many, many patient years of beating PR and still being beat by a still faster runner.

For runners as myself watching Meb, Rita or Shalene thunder through the 26.2 mile marker is as inspiring as it is intimidating. Spending some 20 years running marathons for a win, or finishing 26.2 miles at a time 45 % faster than mine and to not win, but promising “to be back next year”, these are mental incentives of perseverance and dedication reserved to a very few of us. First of all, as humbling it is to conquer 26.2 miles in running, it is also painful. Training for a marathon race is also quite consuming, both in time and in effort, and “getting runs in” can be taxing to our schedule. Then there is also the Damaskus sword: Once we have a PR, we try our best to break it, never mind the other challenges such as weather conditions, road conditions or physical conditions.

Today my running app advised me to move on to the top marathon training level - breaking that PR. My next marathon race is five weeks away, and apparently going the distance is not enough....

See you at Mile 26.2?

If you run, you are a runner.

Going Boston Strong.