It's Back to Boston: Nothing Can Stop Us, Not Even Injury, Darkness, nor Evil

Normally, on Sundays, The Prices Do DC presents Smithsonian Sunday. But today, that feature won't appear so we can reprint this special report from The Los Angles Times about returning to the Boston Marathon one year after last year's bombing.  The story is written by Joe Tanfani. Years ago, in what now seems like a galaxy far, far away, Joe and I sat next to each other in the old office of the Cumberland (NJ) Bureau of The Press of Atlantic City. I left newspapers to go into education. Joe stayed in newspapers, won a Pulitzer Prize, and today covers Washington for the Times.  It is especially fitting that we post Joe's story on Easter. In essence, the Easter story is about resilience and revival and rebirth and resurrection. Joe's story is about all of those things on a personal, a local, and a national level. 

And speaking of personal, here is a personal note to Joe: Forget your Pulitzer. You have now reached the pinnacle of journalistic success. You are being reposted in The Price Do DC.

Reporter Joe Tanfani just minutes after finishing last year's Boston Marathon ...

... and then came the horror of this.

WASHINGTON — On Monday, if all goes according to plan, I'll be lining up at the start of the Boston Marathon. Let's just say this up front: I probably shouldn't be.

I signed up last September, but over the last few months, training season, I've been fighting one of those frustrating injuries that just would not come around. Figuring for weeks that it was just a bad hamstring, I stubbornly dragged my bad leg like a piece of wood over snow and black ice, all through a relentless, miserable Northeast winter.

My family and friends thought I was nuts, watching me limp around, and it's hard to think of a good counter-argument, especially on mornings when it's 18 degrees and you're supposed to be doing 10 miles, but every time you squat down your leg seizes in pain.

But running the Boston Marathon is always special, and this one means a lot more. I was there last year, when it turned horrific. I want to be there this year, when it comes back.

To continue reading Joe's story, click here.