What I Cannot Say.

I know this: I will no longer say that poor racing was the equivalent of "blowing up." I will not coach my cross country and track runners to "explode" as they approach the finish line. I know this because I know that language, like the reality it signifies, can maim and disfigure.

At least twice, as Monday's horrific afternoon stretched into evening, I thoughtlessly noted how my phone "blew up" as cell towers intermittently granted service to the thousands of concerned onlookers and their thousands of concerned family members and friends. To be so attuned to the informality of conversational speech--something otherwise innocuous and trivial--makes the crux of this reflection even harder to condone. But language can also heal. I love the language to the extent that I have made it my life's pursuit and my professional career, and yet I have no way to utilize it to succinctly describe the immensity that was so much more than the Boston Marathon. For once, no lexicon can account for the mass and scope needed to summarize so many competing emotions, overwhelming uncertainties, and lingering fears. But despite this feeling, I know I must grapple with the trauma in order to cobble together some kind of understanding.

So I write what I cannot say.

And unlike what I have written for past entries on this blog, I maintain that I'm writing this now for an audience of one. I selfishly sift through the matters of my mind for purely personal gain. My decision to put this reflective sifting online reflects the fact that so many in my supportive network have either asked about some aspect of the trip or have wondered why I haven't started writing. So I have resolved to write in hopes that I can arrive at something I cannot (simply) say.

The prologue of the experience is essentially a vacation wrapped in anticipation. After a 1:00 a.m. arrival, the morning brought with it a final interval workout on a hotel treadmill, a train to the Boston Commons, lunch with a former student, a trip to the fabulous race exposition, and delicious dinner with a few long-lost friends from my past. Later we enjoyed a brunch with Sacramentans, who were visiting to spectate, then a day game at Fenway where we caught ourselves a dandy of a ballgame that featured Buccholtz riding a no-no through eight. We were endlessly spoiled by a friend and former teammate, carted to and from the town of Hopkinton where we could eat, sleep, and essentially "live" a measly mile from the start line of the world's most prominent road race.

My race performance was mechanical. I ruled out a personal best, instead opting to begin easy and reassess after the hills at 20. Racers of all flavors passed me for the better part of 13, runners I eventually sacked as they struggled break through the "wall." I look at the numbers, and my splits ride an unwavering line. I never buckled, even through the changes in elevation. I was efficient. I was a machine.

To remind myself I was human, I smiled frequently, made an effort to high-five, and chatted with my fellow runners when appropriate. I followed a loose fuel plan, alternating between water and Gatorade at appropriate mile stops. I survived frat parties, Frogger wannabes, and strollers darting across the northeastern hamlet streets. I tumbled from the din of screaming coeds at Wellesley unfazed and unkissed. I passed the legendary runner Joan Benoit Samuelson, and all 55 of incredibly talented years while surging through the Newton hills, and thanked her for everything. I spied the Hopkinton crew near Heartbreak Hill and tossed them my arm warmers, then nonchalantly decided to pick up the pace through 23, which amounted to a long and tedious stint stretching along a flat avenue through Boston. The Sacramentans screamed somewhere near 24. By 25, I'd already realized a personal best was, despite my initial avoidance, a legit possibility. According to my GPS watch I closed the final 385 feet (the .2) at a 6:00 pace, and I crossed the finish line with a clear head and indescribable want to keep moving.

I stretched, made my way through the medals and mylar and water bottles, thanking the volunteers candidly. I spoke with a reporter from the Boston Herald, who marveled at how I acted and how I felt considering what I'd just done. His story, of course, was never penned.

I called my father to check on Stephanie's splits. I spoke with such zeal and energy. He couldn't comprehend my request for Stephanie's times, and he couldn't understand how I could run a marathon and then conduct a coherent, even vibrant conversation. I made my way to a room at the Copley Marriott for a post-race shower and a meal. Connected with an extended community of survivors glowing in the accomplishment and experience of so many successful journeys into Boston, we debriefed and awaited the arrival of the rest.

The unforeseen epilogue is, for me, comprised of the same members of the Hopkinton family, but its wrapped in tumult--and now reflection. After the bombs, which were audible to members of our showering troupe, the room became our shell. I think now of the children, 4 and 3, and how they invented games and played hide-and-seek while we surveyed the news and our cell phones and a room service order that would never, ever be placed. I think about our collaborative decision to leave, the wary exodus from the hotel, the distant sound of the police detonating a third device nearby, and another collaborative decision that a parking garage and a shuttered city were not places we wanted to be. I reflect on how, long after we'd unknowingly stolen food from a charity function on the fifth floor, seven adults and two children eventually rode, in a car built for six, back to Hopkinton. I hold tight to the feel of the family matriarch who, after buying us pizza at 9:45 p.m., grabbed a stranger (me) and hugged him tightly. Parents had been called, teammates and friends and spouses had been found, and the group grappled with managing all the information that poured in long into the night.

In the beginning, I joked that I'd never repay, financially or otherwise, the hospitality, convenience and comfort extended to us by the family in Hopkinton. So many of our teammates struggled to pull themselves from the city to the start line while we overslept and twiddled our toes in pajamas until nearly race time. How could I ever, I wondered aloud, run a Boston Marathon that included a hotel, a bus ride, or any of the other arduous components of a point-to-point destination marathon?

And by the end, I wondered how it would be possible to return to California without maintaining intermittent contact with the house in Hopkinton. The range of emotion--from the celebration of completion through the fatigue of exertion, the insufficient nutritional recovery and the adrenaline churning as we faced concern and uncertainty and the emotional and psychological trauma--left us all frayed and lonely and in doubt. And together.

What followed is surreal, something that's just coming into focus as I compose. Sleeplessness, muscular fatigue, and cross-country travel have made reintegration with the normal world difficult. Add the fever dream sequence and immediate fallout of a terrorist attack, along with a silence carried by those connected to situation appears, and this want for clarity seems almost primal. By Wednesday, fear and sadness bubbled through the facade of ease I'd foolishly created. I drove to work cautiously, reacted irritably to curious students at certain times, and avoided any chance to interact and share my thoughts on the event.

What they wanted I could not say. I see this now, because I realize that what I wanted I could not say.

I am working to put things into perspective. I am contextualizing the outreach, processing the support, and working through the details that fused triumph and terror.

I am bound to Boston; that I can say.

Thanks.

Boston has happened, is happening, and hasn't happened yet.

It became certain in October of 2011 as I slogged through the final miles of the Marine Corps. Marathon. I needed to finish in under 3:05, and though I seemed to be finishing in cement shoes carved from the infamous "wall" I was hitting, I had blitzed through enough of the first 20 or so to secure the coveted BQ.

I knew registering for the Boston Marathon wasn't possible, however, until the September prior to the 2013 race. I had to make it through the following year, ultimately register, then train through the winter and early spring. This bloc comprised so much time that I actually recovered, trained, traveled, and raced in another marathon in Eugene, where I managed to shave an impressive chunk off the previous BQ and secure an earlier registration time in September.

The registration was easy. The hardest part, it seems (even still), was getting the qualifying time.

After a tough summer characterized by adductor, quad, and hamstring issues--each included a slew of professionals and a host of diagnoses and no real changes except the end of yoga and the beginning of aqua jogging--the real "healing" started when I simply found a way to get back on the roads.

I spent the fall racing season in what I affectionately consider my running wheelhouse: a ten-miler and my annual half marathon through the neighborhood  here. That half, which is now infamously known for a lead cyclist debacle in mile one, earned me a near New York qualification. With the smell of potential intoxicating, I jumped into another half, my toughest challenge of the year, in Clarksburg. I secured a legitimate PR, but it fell 11 seconds short of the NY time I said I didn't want by ostensibly sought.

By the time I agreed to run 20 or so miles with Stephanie through December's dreadful 2012 CIM downpour, I'd verbally exhausted myself, broadcasting to one and all my running mindset: "Give me more easy long runs, and you can feed those races to the birds!" My attitude coincided with a break from track and speed workouts as well, which helped me enjoy the life of, again, a runner rather than a racer. I hobbled into Christmas, trying podiatrist prescribed creams, new-fangled versions of Icy/Hot, and even taking a five-day running hiatus.

But my mind wasn't right.

By the racing team reassembled on the track, I had solidified my resistance to socializing and role playing. I built a cave for myself, and took a "go it alone" mentality to my still-forming Boston buildup.  I managed to dabble, eventually, in some much needed group workouts (those mile repeats are hard to get through without someone sharing the pace load), but for the most part, I isolated myself in a fog of "well maybe"s and "we'll see"s. I made commitments to fellow runners only to break them in a desire for selfish, self-inflicted solitude. And this went on for weeks.

Then, something happened. Somewhere, lost in the grappling and the moment by moment uncertainty I'd managed to brew, the numbers and the miles and the feedback from my coach showed a readiness. On paper my running read like a detail-oriented attack plan, reflecting the capability that turns 2013's Boston Marathon into something special.

And the taper period--with its internal lecturing, its caging of the finely tuned maniac, its heavy handed submission--is here.

Will Boston be a parade? No, probably not. I don't see myself liking a 26.2 "yog," even if it is along a  renowned course with elite athletes and throngs of supporters. That much time on your feet, for someone who's done the distance much faster, can't be good for you.

Will Boston continue the marathon PR streak? Again, probably not. I've readied myself as best my body will allow, but the goal pace reflects the condition of my body and mind over the last handful of months. And with all that downhill--the meat grinding again and again that eventually gives way to slope uphill at the worst possible time. The Boston course is far less forgiving than Eugene's course through the valley, and that can't be stated enough.

Will Boston be epic? Of course. It will mark a celebration, and wrap up a frustrating and ultimately rewarding training experience. In my disarray, I changed. I added regular massage therapy, increased my at-home attentiveness of repair and recovery, and built in a regimen of personal and professional assessment. I consulted a nutritionist, read a number of published studies and a few key texts, and sought the kinds of education that have not only fueled my running progress, but broadened my approach to personal and mental health and holistic running.

And through it all, I was guided by those from whom I strayed when I sought isolation. My wife reminds me, just in her smile (or frown) that accomplishments of any kind cannot be cast aside. My coach, who writes more emails than I can fathom, somehow manages to pick the words that resonate when he replies to my updates and queries. He got me to peak at 84 miles in the week prior to tapering, a mark that trailed back to back weeks at 82, and a 78 miler before that that included a half marathon and a first-overall age group award. Given that I ran my first marathon on 30-35 miles a week just three years ago, this guy deserve a statue in my yard.

So no victory lap. And probably no personal best. Then what will the 117th Boston Marathon be?

It won't be a finish line. The finish mats--both literally and figuratively--are always deflating because they solidify the end. They get me thinking: I haven't seen some of my fairly close childhood friends after leaving the parking lot of my high school graduation ceremony; I moved away from college before most of my roommates had stopped partying. So many runners stop the watch as they finish a huge race only to think, Now what?

So I answer the Boston question with one of my own. What hasn't Boston been? This time, it's really been about enjoying the run. It's the dark mornings, the wincing slide into every cold water bath, and the utterance of every when-will-it-end? complaint I served during a period of stress or perceived exhaustion. Each and every concern I volleyed was swatted back with an encouraging smile from a loved one, or a colleague, or, more often than ever before, by me.

Boston can't be about the finish line because it's been about every single step along the way. And that's what I'll remember the most.*

*I reserve the right to amend that last statement, even slightly, sometime after April 15, 2013.