Community Corner

Letter: Stamford Boston Marathon Runner Jeff Englander Opens Up

A letter from Stamford Boston Marathon runner Jeff Englander reflecting on the events that occurred Monday, April 15

The Boston Marathon is pure.

In its most elemental form it is the same as it was almost 120 years ago, men (and later women) in shorts, a shirt and running shoes challenging their bodies against the terrain.  As it was then, it is countless people from Hopkinton to Boston, setting up shop on their lawns, front porches and places of business to turn ordinary streets into one of the greatest events in sport. 

It is friends, family and more often than not total strangers from Beantown and around the world banding together to chant, “go”, “you’ve got this”, “take that hill” and “only  __miles left”. 

Long after the elite runners have passed, it is largely ordinary people from all walks of life, of all shapes, sizes and backgrounds summoning every last ounce of strength to take Heartbreak hill as the legendary Johnny Kelly was so infamously unable to do almost 80 years ago. 

As it has been for over a century, the Marathon is also the place where these same runners and their families go for one day to realize the dream of a lifetime as they cross the finish line on Boylston Street.

While Monday’s events will challenge our community as a whole, we helped lay the groundwork for this country and all its basic virtues.  Our cities and towns gave the world many of the wonders that make our world what it is today - the telephone, anesthesia, chemotherapy and the computer, just to name a few. 

We have seen the election of our native son as President and gone on to carry the torch of his new generation as he was shockingly taken from us.  We endured the tearing of our moral fabric as we struggled to desegregate our schools, only to slowly heal those wounds and later elect an African American civil rights lawyer as Governor. 

Through the years, we have used sports to confront our differences, challenge our beliefs and misconceptions about one another and often, to heal our collective pain. 

While we do not yet know who did this, we do know that no coward who kills and maims innocent bystanders, no matter what the agenda, will ever take away this elegant but yet unadulterated event that shapes our City.

 - Jeff Englander, Stamford
   Boston Marathon Runner



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