Running through tears, fears

Arkansans on quest to help Boston Marathon heal

“There’s no way to prepare for it,” Cortney Allison, who finished last year’s Boston Marathon 10 minutes before the bombs went off, said of running in this year’s race. “The crowd support will either make you joyous and jubilant, or it will make you emotional.”
“There’s no way to prepare for it,” Cortney Allison, who finished last year’s Boston Marathon 10 minutes before the bombs went off, said of running in this year’s race. “The crowd support will either make you joyous and jubilant, or it will make you emotional.”

Sitting cross-legged on a bench high above the black asphalt and white stripes of the Forest Heights Middle School track, Cortney Allison swiped at the flurry of long, blond ringlets blown into her face by a sudden breeze.

The 47-year-old Little Rock tax accountant turned to the small group of Mount St. Mary Academy athletes seated one row behind her. She smiled and patted the knee of 12th-grader Molly Sampson, a hurdler on the track team.

“Don’t stop. Keep running,” Sampson said, eyes locking with Allison’s.

The girls - runners whom Allison has coached for two seasons - grew silent, then one broke into a bout of nervous laughter, cutting the tension.

Almost in unison, the girls pulled out cellphones to check their schedules for Monday, when Allison will be running in the Boston Marathon for the third time.

ARKANSANS IN BOSTON MARATHON

FINISHED
  • Cortney Allison
  • Will Berry
  • James Bresette
  • Arthur Brown
  • Javier Delgado Granados
  • Mikah Felkins
  • Joe Fennel
  • Kim Howard
  • Wesley Hunt
  • Betty Ann Hurt
  • Christopher Moutos
  • Joseph Nichols
  • Lance Osborne
  • Tish Pace
  • Abrena Rine
  • Nate Smith
  • Tia Stone
  • Jonah Tanui
  • Nathan Venable
  • Randy Vest
  • Dave Wilkinson

STILL RUNNING AT TIME OF EXPLOSION
  • Julie Bridgforth
  • Mary Jo Brinkman
  • Abdi Dubed
  • Jeffrey Glasbrenner
  • Jamie Merriman

Of those Arkansans who competed, none was injured as a result of the explosions.

“I’ll be able to track you,” Caroline Spelling, 15, a ninth-grader at Mount St. Mary’s, said as she pointed to the electronic calendar on her phone. The other girls followed suit, each chiming in with questions and more advice for Allison.

Allison squeezed Sampson’s knee. The teenager’s admonition to “keep running” despite it all invokes the memory of a similar order from her husband, almost a year ago to the day.

“I just remember him saying, ‘Keep walking. They think there are more bombs,’” Allison said.

Last year, 10 minutes after Allison crossed the finish line on Boylston Street in Boston, two pressure-cooker bombs left in backpacks exploded, killing three people and injuring more than 260.

On Monday, Allison will join more than 36,000 runners - 58 from Arkansas - at the Boston Marathon starting line.

But Allison admitted that she doesn’t know what to expect.

“There’s no way to prepare for it,” she said. “The crowd support will either make you joyous and jubilant, or it will make you emotional. It’s going to be all about focus and trying to weed out the external influences.”

Kevin Navin, a licensed clinical social worker at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences who is also a marathon runner, said the runners will face myriad emotions Monday.

“They will have a hyper sense of vigilance. It will be the same starting line, all the sights and sounds of last year,” he said. “And there will be an increased police presence. For some, that’s going to be a reminder of what happened last year. It will be unnerving but also offer a sense of protection, as well.”

The bombers, Navin said, chose the wrong group to target.

“Marathoners are incredibly resilient people who do not give up. There’s going to be a tremendous sense of support and sensitivity to one another,” he said. “I think they’re going to really demonstrate how they’re not going to let an event like this take their support and social network away. They want to show everybody that they will not be chased away.”

For 31-year-old Jenny Wilkes - a Little Rock tax attorney who will be running in the Boston Marathon for the first time - the bombings spurred her passion even more to run in the prestigious 26.2-mile race, touted as the world’s oldest marathon.

“I really want to be there. I think the biggest thing is just defiance in the face of people who want to hurt others,” Wilkes said.

“Marathon runners, we’re such a strong type of person. There’s a lot of training, hard work and dedication that goes into it. We have that drive, and nothing is going to change what we’re going to do. We’re the last people you are going to destroy from doing something like this.”

Tish Pace, 39, of Searcy - who passed the finish line just minutes before the explosions last year - said she believes this year’s race will be “epic,”and that the crowd of spectators will add a level of enthusiasm and support that will provide even more motivation and security to the runners.

“The whole 26 miles will be lined up with people screaming your name,” she said. “We’re going to be strong and powerful. I don’t want to say that I’m so brave, because I’m not. I’m a little nervous. I’ve thought that if someone is going to do it again, it will be at the starting line this year. But I know that God’s in control.”

Jeff Glasbrenner, 41, a Little Rock amputee runner who was three blocks from the finish line when the bombs exploded last year, said this year’s marathon will not be about time clocks or breaking records.

“I’m completely super-excited about it. It’s not going to be my fastest time. I will just be enjoying the day and what it symbolizes,” he said. “We had a choice on how to deal with that day. Monday will be a day of overcoming. We won’t be paralyzed by it.”

Jamie Merriman, 54, of Hot Springs was less than a minute behind the second explosion at Boylston Street and Ring Road. She said she heard the first explosion and saw the second one as she neared the finish line.

“After you run 26 miles, your mind is a little fuzzy,” Merriman said. “It was totally surreal.”

Merriman, who works at the Learning Institute in Hot Springs, said her husband, Larry, 55, was going to meet her at the finish line, where the second explosion took place. He had attended the Boston Red Sox baseball game at Fenway Park against the Tampa Bay Rays about an hour before the explosions at Copley Square.

The two separately wandered the streets of Boston for four hours before Jamie Merriman ended up in an apartment occupied by a couple of Boston Marathon volunteers. Jamie Merriman couldn’t contact her husband because she had given her phone to him, which she said was a mistake in hindsight.

“I’ll never do that again,” she said.

Merriman admitted that she had reservations at first about running in Boston for a third time - her eighth marathon overall. But running in the Boston Marathon this year has become about honoring the lives that were lost.

“I have to do this,” Merriman said. “This year is just so special.”

If Merriman hadn’t experienced cramps at mile 15 last year, she might not be running in her third Boston Marathon, she said. It’s a feeling she’s carried with her over the past year.

“I totally owe it to the grace of God,” she said.

This year’s marathon route will be flanked by hundreds of officers from 14 law-enforcement agencies deploying numerous security measures. More than 8,000 steel barricades - compared with 1,200 at last year’s event - will be erected around the area. Four times the number of K-9 officers that patrolled last year will be on duty.

Dr. Nathaniel Smith, the state health officer and director of the Arkansas Department of Health, said the response to the bombings from authorities that he witnessed when he ran the Boston Marathon last year should bolster the confidence of this year’s participants. Extra job duties and a change from marathon to trail running will keep him from returning to Boston this year, however.

“The city is so resilient and did so many things right. This year, there is going to be more of a commitment to the ideals of the Boston Marathon. There will be a sense of being a part of history, but in a positive way,” Smith said.

“I think the people are going to have a very strong sense that they are there for a purpose, especially those that were not able to finish last year. They’re going to take care of unfinished business.”

Kim Howard of Mineral Springs - who has competed in the Boston Marathon for the past three years and was two blocks past the finish line last year when he heard the explosions - has chosen not to run in the marathon this year. He said it was the cost of the trip, instead of the fear of another attack, that figured into his decision.

“I think the runners this year will have a mixture of emotions. They will be excited and ready to run. I don’t think anybody will be scared,” Howard said. “They will be motivated and ready to cross the finish line. Nothing’s going to hold them back.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/20/2014

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