April 20, 2004 - Nine years apart, tears for Boston

Emilio Romero

My wife had died four years earlier – just one month before the marathon which would have been our first. I had trained like crazy for about a year. A dearly loved aunt had flown to Houston to be with my three little kids while I ran the marathon. The very few stars in my then film-thin firmament were starting to align; but my children (10, 8 and 6 then) didn’t want to go to the Expo, they wanted to see the Aquarium.

In the aftermath of any defining moment in our lives, we often try – for good or bad —to make sense in retrospect and pinpoint when and how it all started. And while I say I had trained my butt off for almost a year, the most persistent memory of those months, which ultimately were supposed to qualify me for the Boston Marathon, takes me back to the track at my youngest son’s high school. Early in the morning, the familiar lyrics started whispering the music in my ears, saying first there's nothing, but a slow glowing dream your fear seems to hide deep inside your mind; and then the speedwork started: 13 x 1600 with 90 seconds rest in between.