Moving On. It’s What We Do, Right?

It’s been how many days since the Boston Marathon bombings? I don’t know either.

We’ve moved on, right? I flipped on the TV and watched two Toronto teams play in Boston last night. Other than seeing the Boston Strong logo here and there, I never thought about what happened last month. Boston has moved on.

A young lady died out on the course at the GoodLife Fitness Toronto Marathon last weekend. Emma was just 18. One of my running friends saw her on the course as paramedics worked to revive her. Another friend went back and ran past the spot the other day and wrote up a nice article about her.

You go out for a run shortly after hearing about something like Boston, or a runner dying on course and you think about it. You consider yourself or your family at the finish line in Boston. Or you think about your own mortality and consider booking that annual physical you haven’t bothered with for five years.

And then you tuck it away, deep in the back of your mind and probably never consider it again.

As a runner, I’ve moved on.

That’s callous, right? How about the victims of the bombing that lost limbs or lost loved ones? Move on? What about the family of Emma? Move on?

But that’s exactly what those people will do. Granted it will be immeasurably more difficult for them to move on, but they will. Because it’s really the only thing they can do.

Moving on is part of life. Something happens, you deal with it, you put it behind you and you move on. Hit by a car? Shit happens, life sucks, move on. No sense dwelling on things in the past, on the things we can’t control.

One foot in front of the other. Keeping it moving.

Missing the BMO Vancouver Marathon

For the first time in two years, I won’t be in Vancouver on the first Sunday in May to run the BMO Vancouver Marathon.

I ran it first in 2011 on my 40th birthday and had a blast. I went out to Vancouver alone and spent a long weekend in one of my favourite places, running the marathon in the middle and just doing my own thing for a few days.

It was such a great experience that Ginny and I decided to go out last year together and run it again. She ran the half, and I did the full in 2012.

I met a bunch of runner friends out there in 2011 and I’ve kept in touch with a half dozen of them over Twitter and Facebook ever since. Seeing them again in 2012 was great and Kirsty and I ran the first 38 km of the marathon together before I crashed and burned and she ran away to a sub-4:00 PB.

I’m bummed that I won’t be running around the Seawall this year but more bummed that I won’t be seeing Jon, Kathryn, Skye, Kirsty, Jess and Damian.

I was feeling jealous of my running friends of late as I watched them prep for races. So I decided to sign up for the GoodLife Fitness Toronto Half Marathon on Sunday and at least get out there.

I’m in no shape to race a half, but I’ll be out there doing the running thing. I’m looking forward to 21.1km at a decent pace, enjoying the company a few thousand of my fellow racers.

iPhone, MacBook, iPad mini

I picked up an iPad mini the other day as a bit of an early birthday present.

I’ve been an iPhone user for a couple of years (currently using an iPhone 5), and a Mac user since 2005. I was interested to see what the difference was between using those three devices.

I use my MacBook Pro heavily. Hours a day. I’m on my third Mac since ’05 and I’m due for an upgrade later this year.

I use the MacBook Pro to do things – to write, to code websites, to edit photos. But I also consume content on it. I read tweets, browse news sites and read feeds.

I’m never without my iPhone. It is literally with me 24 hours a day. I love it.

An ad for the iPad miniThe iPhone is all about consumption for me. I read email. I check Twitter. I flip through Flipboard. I listen to Rdio and hours of podcasts. When I create content it is a short email or a 140 character tweet. Anything more is a chore because of the tiny keyboard and mini screen.

Then there is the iPad mini. It’s half way in between the two. It’s great for content consumption and pretty decent for content creation. The screen is a bit small and the keyboard isn’t ideal, but I wrote this entire post on it. That’s something I’d never attempt on the iPhone.

I’m most excited about some of the unique apps on the iPad mini. And I’m really keen on its portability. Being able to grab a thin, tiny device that is a pretty solid replacement for a heavy laptop (in many regards ) is pretty great.

For $329, it’s a no-brainer.

I’m Back and Still Running For Fun

It’s been 168 days since I last laced up my shoes and ran a race. That was the Road2Hope Half Marathon in Hamilton, Ontario back on November 4, 2012.

Lots has happened since then, but I’ve kept up my running pretty well despite not having a race on my schedule and that little elbow surgery thing last month that put me out of action for a couple of weeks.

A few months back I ran 27km on February 24th. I came out of that run with a pretty sore ankle thanks to a near fall and some very icy streets. Since then I’ve run only eight times as I nursed the foot back to health with some rest, and went through the surgery.

Last Sunday I ran 12km and felt pretty good. I’ve been trying to get back on a regular schedule since then and it’s been going well with a half dozen runs under my belt. I’m feeling stronger and loving the running again as my fitness returns quickly.

Today I went out with the marathon group from the Running Room at the TD Centre. They had a 24km route mapped out and I figured running the first 15km (at least) should be doable. I got to 12km and was feeling good so I kept running. At 14.5km I had to commit to a trail section with no TTC escape until 18km. I felt good so I bombed down the Beltline Trail. It was great to be back, and I felt super.

I decided then to push through to the finish and run the whole route. We ran across the Bloor Viaduct, down Broadview, and then along Queen back downtown. The legs started giving out a bit, but 24.75km was done in 2:33:15.

Awesome amazing.

GoodLife Fitness Toronto MarathonWhen I got home I signed up for the GoodLife Fitness Toronto Half Marathon in two weeks. I can’t wait to run another race. It won’t be my fastest ever, but that’s okay. Run for fun is my motto this winter and spring and this race will be the culmination of that effort.

Thoughts on Boston and the Marathon

At its very core, the marathon is about overcoming.

It’s about tapping into a mysterious force that lets you do things you didn’t think you could. It brings out the very best in people like no other event does.

The finish line at the Boston Marathon was shattered on Monday by two bombs. Limbs of several people were lost. The lives of three were taken. We were all affected by it in one way or another.

An Unbreakable Spirit

Boston Marathon 2013But take heart in this truth: The spirit of the marathon is unbreakable. I spent the last 24 hours thinking about what the impact the attack would have on the running community, and on the event that all marathon runners look to for ultimate inspiration.

Our spirits were shaken yesterday. Shaken hard. Someone tried to extinguish the spirit of the marathon and I’m mad about it. How dare you.

The Spirit of the Marathoner

In thinking about what happened yesterday, and in reading incredible accounts of heroism and bravery from volunteers, first responders, runners and victims, I’ve come to realize that the spirit of the marathon comes not from the event, or the distance, or the history.

The spirit of the marathon burns inside the people who run it.

Each marathoner has a story to tell about how they were challenged in their own way and overcame. No doubt there were people out on the Boston course yesterday who had overcome incredible obstacles. Cancer, sickness, depression, addiction… each runner has their reason to run and to train and to take on the marathon challenge and emerge triumphant after 42.2km.

That’s why it was so incredibly hurtful that the bombs were at the finish and that many runners yesterday never got to experience the joy that comes with the running the last few hundred meters of their marathon. I don’t know whether the person responsible considered this carefully, or whether it was by chance they chose the finish line to make their sick point. Whatever the case, the location added to the impact.

We’ll Overcome, We’ll Run Again

Most will have another opportunity to take on the marathon and they’ll get to cross the line and revel in their accomplishment at another event or in Boston next year. Some won’t, and that is truly tragic.

Runners run and I’ll run a big-city marathon again, I’m sure. I’ll think of Boston every single time I run towards the finish line, and I’ll be thankful every time I cross without incident. It’s not fair that it happened in Boston this week, but it did happen. It’s not fair that we’ll have to think of it every single time we run, but we will.

It can’t be changed.

But runners will overcome this and the spirit of the marathon won’t be diminished. Instead, like the runners that find strength they didn’t know they had, the marathon will emerge stronger for what it went through in Boston yesterday.