"And this time next year, on the third Monday in April, the world will return to this great American city to run harder than ever, to cheer even louder for the 118th Boston Marathon. Bet on it!"

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief, ...--Robert Frost,
"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

All running races must sink. The anticipation morphs into a memory; the roads re-open to cars; the blue-and-yellow jackets disperse. But it shouldn’t sink like that. Not at a marathon. Not at The Marathon.

Boston is strong. Boston is resilient. Boston is our home. And Boston has made us enormously proud in the past 24 hours. The Boston Marathon is a deeply held tradition – an integral part of the fabric and history of our community. We are committed to continuing that tradition with the running of the 118th Boston Marathon in 2014.

Beyond supporting CAF, what is it I can actually do? I can’t find the perps. I can’t fight a war. I can’t change geopolitics, or gun politics, or religious mania, or whatever it is that is behind the unfathomable act committed. But I can run. I can enter. I can show up. We aren’t going to have fewer people at our marathons and triathlons as a result of yesterday. We’re going to have more. Because that’s our show of defiance. Once we, as a nation, recover from our shock, we’re going to lace up. And, if I still have some anger to burn off, I cannot imagine a more appropriate way.