Response to Boston Marathon terrorist attack

To the editor:

Over the years I have run the Boston Marathon several times, but this year I just wasn’t running fast enough to qualify. Up until today, my not qualifying has been a disappointment. Yesterday, I watched the footage of runners and spectators who fell from shrapnel and know that it could have been me.

I am lucky to be a middle-aged, middle-of-the-pack runner who still has the ability and health to run for a long period of time — a female version of Forrest Gump, if you will. For me, making it to the Boston Marathon is the equivalent of acquiring tickets to the World Series. Boston is such a significant race that no matter where you place, it just really means something. And the fact that the race takes place on Patriots Day is even more special. Each time I have passed the Boston Fire Station and then saw the finish line ahead, I have cried. I am honored to have simply been there.

My last Boston Marathon was in 2010, six months after my dad passed away from cancer and Parkinson’s disease. The race was significant because my friends Jennifer Johnson (Larimore, N.D.), Michelle Bacon (Grand Forks, N.D.), Karen Looney (Palmer) and I qualified for Boston and then used the race as a way to raise money for the American Cancer Society. I had planned to do the same if I was fortunate to run it again someday.

As I watch the news, I mourn the innocent people who have died and been injured by yet another senseless attack. It is the end of an era for innocent human beings and for the running world, and that makes me very sad.

Michele Peterson

Grand Forks, N.D.

and former Alaska resident