It’s been a tough week. On Monday, April 15, the woes we all feel on Tax Day were set to be tempered by the annual excitement of the Boston Marathon. In a split second, the exhilaration of the day turned to horror when bombs exploded near the finish line.

As a walking distance racer myself, these events stunned me. It was a similar yet different feeling to September 11. While of course 9/11 was horrific beyond belief, it wasn’t as personal to me. I never worked in the World Trade Center. I’d been there, but only as a tourist.

The Boston Marathon is a race like many I’ve participated in myself. As a walker, I’ll never qualify for Boston, but I’ve crossed many a finish line and cooled down in the finish line area – just like the runners and spectators who were hurt and killed on Monday. The images that emerged on Monday and the days to follow were all the more upsetting because I could easily picture myself there.

This morning, I awoke to the news that the manhunt for the perpetrators of this terrible attack has taken on Hollywood-esque proportions. If the attacks themselves were hard to believe, this is nearly impossible for my traumatized brain to process. How does this happen in America?

But we’re a resilient sort. On 9/11, we bent, but didn’t break. A couple of weeks ago I visited the 9/11 memorial. It’s a stunning example of turning tragedy into something beautiful.

And we’ll do it again. On Sunday, I’m participating in the Lansing Marathon Half, along with my husband and son. I’ve been training since January and I’m not about to give up. Giving up lets the bad guys win. And we’re not about to let that happen.

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• September 11, 2001: America Remembers

No, this isn’t me, but I wish it was.

During the last couple months, I’ve been doing a lot of stretching. I’ve been literally stretching my tired muscles as I train to walk my second half marathon. I’ve been stretching mentally at work, too.

I’m a month into a 3-month project where I’m covering for a coworker who’s on maternity leave. It’s been a great experience so far – I’m not one to shy away from new challenges, and this has definitely been a challenge for me.

One of the great things about stretching is you learn how far you can really go. Walking a half marathon teaches you that you can walk farther and faster than you ever thought possible. In my project role, I’ve learned a few things too.

Rushing the job never works.

If you’re doing a 10-mile training walk, you need to allot enough time to complete the distance. I know I can’t cover 10 miles in an hour, so I don’t even try. Sure, you can (and should) push the pace a little, but I know my limits. If I don’t have 2 ½ hours free, I know I can’t do 10 miles.

The same thing goes for work. As with any new project or set of responsibilities, the sheer length of the to-do list tends to create a sense of urgency. It’s easy to fall into the trap of hurrying through a task to pare down the list.

I’ve always known that a rush job is never your best job, but this project has been a big refresher course in slowing down. It’s better to make sure everything is right than it is to race through everything as fast as you can. Luckily, I avoided major stumbles, but I was perilously close a couple times and it wasn’t fun.

Love what you do – or fake it till you make it.

Last year I walked my first half marathon. I had 2 goals: finish the race, and not come in last place. I’m proud to say I accomplished both goals! When I started training for this year’s race, I set some more aggressive goals that required some heavy-duty training. I’m not gonna lie – there were times that I really wanted to slow down or cut the distance short. But I kept going. And eventually, I found that I enjoyed pushing myself!

When it comes to PPC, I’m the luckiest person on earth because I get to do work that I love and get paid for it. It doesn’t feel like work. In this project, though, there’s a lot more client contact than I had before. While I love talking to clients, it can be challenging to be in meetings for 6-7 hours a day.

So, I took the same approach as I did with the marathon: faked it until I made it. It didn’t take long – maybe a week tops – to feel comfortable, but I’m sure if I’d copped a poor attitude, I’d still be struggling.

And really, it’s easy to talk to people. If you treat everyone as though they’re just the person you wanted to talk to, the conversation will be smooth and pleasant. If you take 5 seconds to confirm receipt of an email, you’ll ease worries. Simple things, to be sure, but they work.

The half marathon is a week from Sunday, and I know I’m ready. And I’ve hit my stride on my new project, too. It’s always good to stretch.

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• September 11, 2001: America Remembers

Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001? I was right here in my office, just like every other work day. It was a beautiful day – one of those where it’s hard to be at work, it’s so nice out. My twins, then 4, had just started preschool the week before, and were still adjusting to it. I had logged on to my computer and had my browser pointed to MSN’s home page, which, at 8 a.m. when I got here, had your everyday run-of-the-mill stuff on it.

At about 8:40 a.m., I was at the drinking fountain down the hall, filling my water glass, when a co-worker came by and asked me if I’d heard the news. I said no, and he said an airplane had just crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Puzzled, I asked, “you mean, like, an accident?” He said “no – it’s a terrorist attack!” I ran back to my desk and tried to refresh MSN. The network was overloaded and I couldn’t get the page to load, which told me the news was true. I turned on my radio, and the music station I keep it tuned to was all news coverage. I spent the morning piecing the story together from the radio and the Internet, when I could actually get a news page to load (which was rarely). I listened to Peter Jennings on ABC News cover the events live. I remember that, when the first tower fell, there was dead silence on the air for a good 10-15 seconds. I have never heard a newscaster like Peter Jennings speechless during a broadcast, except for that day.

At around 9:30 that morning, our CEO sent an email to “all” about the attacks, saying there would be TV coverage in our break room for those who wished to see it. I chose to try to keep working and leave the radio on, but I did go watch some of the coverage later. I kept that email in my Inbox for 3 years before I could finally bring myself to file it.

I had a lunch date with a friend that day. I called her mid-morning and asked her if we should still have lunch. We agreed that we should – no reason to give those terrorists what they wanted and have our lives grind to a halt. We had planned to go to a sports bar, and all the big screens had news coverage of the horrific events. That was where I first saw the video of the towers falling. It was, like so many have said, like watching a bad movie. I likened it to “Independence Day” where the aliens blew up the White House. My brain wanted to believe this was fake, too; but I knew it was real.

During the day, I frantically emailed colleagues and friends who lived in New York. It took a couple of days, but miraculously, I heard back from all of them – no one was hurt. Physically, anyway. Their stories of the day were beyond horrifying.

Back at work that afternoon, I walked outside with coworkers, like I had done every day for the past 2 years. Our office is on several airline flight paths, and normally there are planes flying overhead all day. We remarked at the eerie silence in the sky, with all airline travel halted for the day.

It was shortly after 5 p.m. when I arrived at my twins’ preschool to pick them up. I could tell that the teachers had all they could do to keep it together emotionally, but they were doing their best not to let on to the young children what had happened. An Indian mother and father arrived at the same time I did, to pick up their daughter. Although they spoke almost no English, I remember the non-verbal communication we shared that day. I could tell that everyone, regardless of nationality, was as affected as I was.

My van’s gas tank was on Empty that day, and I had planned to stop on the way home for gas. The first station I passed had signs saying “Out Of Gas.” I was surprised – it reminded me of the oil embargo days back in the 1970s. A few blocks away, at the next station, the lines of cars waiting for gas were 10 deep and wound out into the road. I started to worry. Finally, when we got to the gas station a block from home, the line of cars was so long and traffic was so backed up that we couldn’t even get to our street to get home. I was on the verge of panic at this point, and my children sensed it and starting crying. So I drove cross-country, over the curb and through the right-of-way, to our street and on home. I put in a movie for the kids so they wouldn’t see anything on TV. My husband went back out later that night for gas. It took him an hour and he paid $1.89/gallon – a bargain now, but it was about 20-30 cents higher than gas prices were when I left for work that morning. We were afraid we were on the verge of war, so he went out again and bought stockpiles of water and canned food. We didn’t end up needing them, but you couldn’t tell for sure at the time. Nothing was certain any more. Our lives, our security, our peace, had been shattered.

It was a terrible, life-changing day on September 11, 2001. I had nightmares for weeks afterward, even though I wasn’t there personally. I had nightmares on the 1-year anniversary, too. It was heartening, though, to see the outpouring of concern and caring that emerged around the globe. There are a couple good posts about the online community’s response to the events, at SE Roundtable and the Online Spin blog. If there was any good to come of that day, it’s the demonstration of how quickly the Internet can disseminate information and begin relief efforts. We should be proud of that.

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