Crossing finish line main goal

BOSTON - The messages started pouring in to Tom Grilk’s office just hours after the bombings, pleading for an entry into the 2014 Boston Marathon.

For months the calls and emails continued, said Grilk, executive director of the Boston Athletic Association.

Runners from around the world were begging the BAA, which runs the race, for an opportunity to cross the finish line on Boylston Street and convinced it would ease at least some of their grief.

“They’d say, ‘I’m not a qualified runner; I don’t think I ever will be,” Grilk said last week. “I train. I run. I could do it. But because of what happened last year, I need to run.

“It might have been because they were present at the finish, or they knew somebody who was working or was affected. They might have been somebody who lives in Haverhill, Mass., and they were watching the race and it hit ‘em hard. That was true for a lot of people.

“And we received some of these communications and we thought, ‘What do we do?’”

The association had already expanded this year’s field to include more than 5,000 runners who were stranded on the course when the two explosions killed three and wounded 264 others. A few extra invitations were sprinkled among the first-responders and the victims, or their families; others went to charities and the towns along the route; some who said they were personally touched by the tragedy were already given bibs.

But organizers felt they might still be missing people, people who perhaps didn’t think their trauma was worthy amid all the lost limbs and physical scars. So, in November, they announced that about 500 bibs would be available for those “personally and profoundly impacted by the events of April 15, 2013.”

In 250-word essays submitted over the website, 1,199 would-be runners made their case. Almost 600 had the connection the B.A.A. was looking for.

“The anger, guilt and heartbreak I still feel today will never go away,” wrote Kate Plourd, who was in the medical tent, dehydrated and vowing never to run Boston again, when she heard the announcements: “Explosions at the finish line. Casualties. Dismemberments. Prepare yourself to treat the victims.”

“Running the 2014 Boston Marathon will help me heal my mind,” she said in the essay that landed her bib No. 28115. “I’ll push myself … to finish the 2014 Boston Marathon in honor of those who won’t ever give up, who I won’t ever forget.”

Twenty one Arkansans were among those who finished before the bombings hit last year; six Arkansas runners received partial times, meaning they were close enough to the finish line without completing the race to earn an invitation to run again. Five of them are entered to run again.

Today, 59 Arkansans, including elite Little Rock runner Leah Thorvilson, are among more than 36,000 runners entered to run in the 118th running of the world’s most famous marathon, with many of those who didn’t finish last year set on reclaiming the euphoria of the finish line that was taken from them.

THINKING OF OTHERS

So many of those contacted for this story had the same request: Please don’t make it about me.

“It’s weird to talk about being affected by the marathon,” Plourd said. “No one I know was injured. A lot of us had really horrible experiences, but everyone walked away unscathed.”

But the victims are “so inspiring,” she said. “If people who have gone through this tragic experience can pull it together and be so strong, I figured I could, too.”

Orthopedic surgeon Sue Griffith is raising money for Shriners Hospitals for Children in Philadelphia to supply prosthetics for children. She wrote that she was celebrating her finish last year “until I found out that the cannons I heard at the finish line were actually bombs.”

When Griffith returned to work Doylestown, Pa., she found her friend and running companion Amy O’Neill on her patient list with shrapnel deeply embedded in her calf.

They are returning to Boston together, Nos. 21321 and 21648.

“It’s going to be a great event, and we’re going to celebrate with the people of Boston,” Griffith said in a telephone interview. “And that’s what we’re going to do.”

Finish-line volunteer Adrienne Wald was interviewed for the story but called back the next morning to express regret; after all, the victims had it much worse.

About 20 UMass-Boston nursing students volunteered last year to serve on a sweep team, where they scooped up exhausted runners with wheelchairs at the finish line.

“There’s nothing like being at the finish line of the Boston Marathon,” Wald, a nursing professor, told her students. “You’re going to be so inspired.”

“I made them read articles about hypothermia, blisters, cramps. And instead they were carrying people with tourniquets around their legs and horrific injuries,” Wald said on Tuesday, the anniversary of the attacks. “I was so worried that I had traumatized them all.

“I was worried they were going to change their majors. Instead they came into my office: ‘I’m going to be an E.R. nurse now.’ ‘I’m going to work in trauma.’ They saw role models that day coming out of the medical tent acting like the top pros that they are.”RUNNING IN UNITY

The marathon can be a brutal sport, even more so when one considers that the 26.2 miles run on the day of the event are the culmination of a years-long process that, in Boston’s case, begins with training for a qualifying race. Many longtime runners never can qualify.

Runners looking for a reason to stop can always find one: the heat, the hills, the blisters, the cramps.

And now the threat of a terrorist attack, the memories of severed limbs, the ears ringing from the concussion of a bomb blast.

This year, three-time Boston women’s champion Uta Pippig said, no one needs to ask them why they are running.

Arkansas entries

BIB NAME AGE M/F CITY

29861 Alison A. Acott 39 F Little Rock

20087 Cortney Allison 48 F Little Rock

17480 Caitlin M. Anderson 25 F Little Rock

8073 Jason A. Barker 44 M De Queen

4360 Will Berry 36 M Russellville

24707 Robert Bowker 73 M Norfork

16131 Wendi M. Brandt 39 F Harrison

24951 Julie Bridgforth 63 F Pine Bluff

25256 Mary Jo Brinkman 72 F Fort Smith

3482 Eric Brock 29 M Maumelle

19388 Christine Coutu 50 F Little Rock

3365 Phil Davison 31 M North Little Rock

16546 Emily A. Franks 27 F Centerton

10503 Alan Freeland 45 M Searcy

16012 Jaime M. Gile 23 F Fayetteville

25309 Jeff J. Glasbrenner 41 M Little Rock

16890 Ashley M. Harris 29 F Pottsville

22921 Jerry E. Hester 69 M Conway

9735 Ryan Holler 45 M Bentonville

1433 Josh Holt 33 M Little Rock

8459 Shawn Husband 43 M Bentonville

18714 Michelle M. Jeffrey 45 F Rogers

16294 Beckie Kennedy 46 F Little Rock

29678 Paul G. Kilvington 56 M Jonesboro

34914 Noel J. Knecht 45 F Bentonville

23624 Deborah J. Lashley 54 F Fort Smith

29736 Paul A. Lufkin 36 M Rogers

14453 David B. Mackenzie 61 M Hot Springs

25302 Richard C. Madison 39 M Little Rock

11739 Heather Mainord 45 F Conway

3467 Matt F. Martin 34 M Bella Vista

12810 J. J. Mayo 46 M Conway

14232 David H. McCormick 59 M Dardanelle

17350 Alison M. McGrimley 26 F Little Rock

24174 Jamie S. Merriman 54 F Hot Springs

1326 Christopher P. Moutos 22 M Little Rock

18689 Steven Mudgett 57 M Fayetteville

29824 Jeff Necessary 53 M Fort Smith

18112 Tish K. Pace 39 F Judsonia

1887 John M. Pankey 50 M Hot Springs

10964 Lance Porter 48 M West Fork

17266 Jenni J. Pustinger 50 F Rogers

8745 Tiffany J. Redlarczyk 29 F Fayetteville

14918 Ray Rego 50 M Little Rock

3927 David Reidy 22 M Fayetteville

9621 Abrena H. Rine 32 F Springdale

5637 Quinn D. Robertson 21 M Springdale

15284 Jamie L. Rogers 26 F Fort Smith

23662 David L. Rutlen 67 M North Little Rock

25415 Andre Slay 32 M Little Rock

13176 E. Corinna Soto 32 F De Queen

34890 Frederic Spies Jr. 61 M Fayetteville

19023 Jim B. Tadel 57 M Monticello

F35 Leah M. Thorvilson* 35 F Little Rock

14884 Randy E. Vest 62 M Ozark

12441 Kayla Waldrup 27 F Bentonville

1573 Dave Weston 42 M Bentonville

17915 Jenny Wilkes 31 F Little Rock

22394 Lynne J. Williams 57 F Fayetteville

*Elite runner

118th Boston Marathon WHERE From Hopkinton, Mass., to Boston TIME Race begins at 9 a.m. Central, with runners released in waves at 9, 9:20 and 9:40 a.m. Elite women will start at 8:32.

WHO 36,000 runners, 9,000 more than usual, have entered. Officials granted guaranteed entries to 5,633 runners who were not able to finish the 2013 marathon because of the bombings at the finish. Many others runners have received exemptions to run.

ARKANSANS 59 are entered, including five runners who were unable to finish last year.

FANS Up to a million people are expected to line the course, more than twice the normal crowd and more than 3,500 police officers will be on patrol. TV Universal sports network INTERNET Live streaming on BAA.org

Sports, Pages 13 on 04/21/2014

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