Sisters Who Survived Columbine Will Run Boston Together 20 Years After Tragedy – runnersworld.com
Sisters Who Survived Columbine Will Run Boston Together 20 Years After Tragedy runnersworld.com
Almost 20 years to the day, two survivors of the Columbine High School massacre will run the Boston Marathon.
Courtesy of Sarah Bush
Almost 20 years to the day, two survivors of the Columbine High School massacre will run the .
The lives of sisters Laura Hall, 34, and Sarah Bush, 36, changed forever that day in 1999 in Columbine, Colorado, when two gunmen killed 12 students and one teacher. It is a day they, and the rest of the country, will never forget.
In the immediate aftermath, they didn’t know how to heal. But since they grew up in a running family—participating in and volunteering at races like Bolder Boulder each year—lacing up would become an unexpected coping mechanism.
For Bush, who was a sophomore on the track and field team at the time of the incident, running was a way to overcome any challenge. It was a reminder that she wasn’t a victim; she was capable of doing and being anything, like a marathoner.
That was Bush’s goal in college: She wanted to run a marathon before she turned 20. Bush was on track to do that until IT band syndrome crept up on her while training. She felt defeated when she went to the doctor. But she was angry and determined when she left.
“The sports therapist said to me, ‘Some people aren’t meant to run ’” Bush told Runner’s World. “I was really mad. Nobody can tell me I can’t do something, and I proven him wrong, because this Boston will be my 11th marathon.”
For seven years after the tragedy, Hall—who was a freshman when the tragedy occurred—struggled to cope until she embraced running as a form of therapy.
The moment this sunk in arrived as she trained for her first marathon in 2006.
“It is so important to choose to be hopeful, and whatever you choose, whether that’s running or sewing, there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” Hall told Runner’s World. “Both Sarah and I have been in that tunnel, and we live happy and fulfilling lives, and running is a huge part of that.”
As for the road to Boston? Both sisters times had been steadily improving since their first races. When Bush’s marathon time crept to the 3:30 mark in 2016, a friend pointed out that she was two minutes off from qualifying for Boston.
That became Bush’s sole goal as a runner. She qualified for Boston in 2017 with a PR of 3:09, and took on Boston in 2018.
Seeing her sister achieve this milestone was all the motivation Hall needed to go for a BQ herself.
This sisters, both of whom are married with children and live a mile apart from each other in Utah, trained together side by side. They both ended up qualifying in 2018. (Hall actually qualified three times, dropping a 3:20 after running in the 3:30s just to make sure she beat the cutoff times.)
“We’re always up for a trip together and a run together,” Hall says. “Once one person was going, the other was going, if everything allowed it. We do most things in life together.”
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With the race less than a week out, the sisters are packing and preparing for a redeye flight Thursday. They have goals for the race, but they also want to get the message out that “no matter your circumstances, you can find joy in your life,” Hall says.
“This race, and running overall, is a way for us to overcome things,” Bush says. “We’ve overcome some hard things, and it is a perpetual reminder that we can do hard stuff and that we’re capable of making goals and breaking those goals.”