Team Brookline Ready to Run Next Year's Marathon

Two weeks ago, members of Team Brookline were heading out to Hopkington for the day they had trained months for: The 117^th Boston Marathon.  

Twenty-four locals trained for the Boston Marathon to raise money for the Brookline Community Mental Health Center, The Brookline Education Foundation, The Brookline Library Foundation, and the Brookline Teen Center. 

“Training was great,” Liz Burke, 24, said. “This was my first Marathon. I ran for Brookline Community Mental Health. Training with the team was great experience. I met some many great people.”

“It was a beautiful day,” Leah Stearns, 32, said. “I ran with a teammate the whole time.” Stearns had run the Boston Marathon before, and noted that this seemed to be the perfect day. Stearns ran because she wanted to raise money for the charities Team Brookline is partnered with. “This is an event that brings people together,” Stearns said. “It’s sad that such a great experience was taken from us.”

Stearns noticed something was wrong by the time she reached Saint Mary’s Street. She saw police on their walkie-talkies. People seemed preoccupied and stopped cheering. Stearns continued on through Kenmore Square, where the bottleneck began.

The police blocked off the road completely at Charlesgate and told runners that the race was canceled. Stearns said that her muscles began to cramp up and everyone around her looked exhausted and shocked. “It was very hard to process after you’ve ran that far,” Stearns said. She and the other runners had to break the news to those who were coming from behind. 

“This was my first time running the Boston Marathon,” Alexa Giovanel, 21, said. “We would get together every Saturday for long runs. I could never have run that far by myself.” This year is Giovanel’s last year at Boston University and she wanted to go out with a bang. That meant training with Rich Schilder, who had 58 Marathons under his belt.   The Team got to Hopkington at 6:30 a.m., talking to each other on the bus and stretching in a group. “My plan was ‘don’t look at clocks or mile markers,’” Giovanel said.

“Heartbreak Hill was the toughest part, but the rowdy crowds at spots like B.C. pulled me through.” She said that after a while, she started smiling uncontrollably through the mental and physical exhaustion.  

She finished the race in three hours and 39 minutes and met her brother in front of the Lenscrafters on Boylston Street. They were between Newburry and Boylston Street when they heard an explosion and felt the ground rumble. “We turned and saw the smoke,” Giovanel said. “Then a cop started screaming, ‘Run! That was a bomb!’ Even after 26 miles, I started running.”  

She and her brother ran to Kenmore Square. Relief came when she was reunited with her family. “I was shooken up,” Giovanel said. “You hear about Marathon Monday, it’s one of the most exciting days in Boston. It was awful that such an amazing day of celebration turned into something horrible.”  

On Thursday, April 26, the Coolidge Corner Theatre hosted the Brookline Together, a memorial and recognition ceremony, which paid respect to the victims of the Marathon attack and applauded the first responders and other volunteers from Brookline.  

Team Brookline was honored along with the Brookline Police, fire, EMTs and other volunteers that evening. Liz Burke spoke on behalf of Team Brookline. Team Brookline raised $157,000 for their charities.  

“I think that when a senseless tragedy like this happens, it’s important to remember all the good in the world,” Burke said in front of a full house at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. “One thing we all have in common from that day is the experience of the outpouring of support from friends, family and total strangers.”  

Burke was turned back at the 25.5-mile marker. Burke said that total strangers helped her get home. “The mile and a half I walked home through Brookline, alone and phoneless is what I’ll remember most about that day,” Burke said.

“People I didn’t know hugged me and asked me if I needed anything. A group of four teenagers dialed my Dad’s phone number until a call went through. A girl came out of her apartment to give me water. A man used the three percent battery life on his iPhone to map my route home and walked with me until a woman pulled over a drove me home.”  

“Some of us crossed the finish line way before anything happened,” Burke said. “Some where there as the tragedy happened. Many of my teammates, myself included, were not able to cross the finish line.”

Burke said that Team Brookline is ready to run again next year.