4:09:43

4:09:43: Boston 2013 Through the Eyes of the Runners by Hal Higdon.

Before I left to run Boston, I happened to receive this book for review, so I was very interested to get a feeling for what to expect.

 

When I first started reading the book, it seemed a bit disjointed. It begins with a foreward, preface, and introduction. They were not in chronological order and they seemed to jump around quite a bit.  I was getting a little lost. Once the chapters started, the story stuck with a more chronological order that I appreciated. Each chapter focused on a different runner's perspective of that day. I got a true feeling for what it was like to be in Boston that day, first the nerves and anxiety, then the excitement, then the terror and sadness.

I appreciated hearing all the different perspectives, but I felt it could have been written better. Higdon is great running coach and writes well technically, but I felt this lacked a little in terms of writing style. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in running and, more specifically, the Boston Marathon. You get a feeling of what it would be like to be there in the best of times and the worst of times.

A Grief Observed

Easily the saddest book I have ever read, C.S. Lewis' book A Grief Observed is his journal he wrote after his wife Joy died of cancer.
It was the first time in his life that he had experienced such a sudden jolt of pain and it is evident in his words that he was completely lost. Lewis' faith was tested and he shares his doubts and anger towards God with readers.
"What chokes every prayer and every hope is the memory of all the prayers H. and I offered and all the false hopes we had. Not hopes raised merely by our own wishful thinking, hopes encouraged, even forced upon us, by false diagnoses, by X-ray photographs, by strange remissions, by one temporary recovery that might have ranked as a miracle. Step by step we were 'led up the garden path.' Time after time, when He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture."

It is a very personal experience that few people are willing to share with the world. As time passes, Lewis comes to conclusions about death and life that will give hope to anyone who has lost a loved one.

"God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't."