Joe Bierhals admits he “can never get enough” of running in the heralded Boston Marathon.
That seems to be quite true since the Scottdale resident completed the famous race for the fifth consecutive year April 20.
“It was a good experience again,” Bierhals said recently. “Each year, as I get older, it gets a little bit harder, so I have to train a little harder. I haven't lost much time. I've only varied a couple minutes each time.”
Bierhals, 45, finished the race in 3:03.43, just a few minutes over his goal of finishing in under three hours.
The 1987 graduate of Southmoreland High School is happy with how he ran and nothing will keep him away from continuing to do so at the famed event, not the rainy, windy “terrible” weather conditions of this year's race nor the horrific tragedy of April 15, 2013, when two explosions near the finish line resulted in three deaths and an estimated 264 injuries.
Bierhals said there was a bit of a different feel to the 2014 race, just one year after the explosions, but it was a bit closer to normal this year.
“The first year after the bombing it was still so new,” Bierhals recalled. “Security was still really, really tight (this year), but as each year goes by it's not as tense.”
There are reminders of the lives lost — Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, a restaurant manager from Medford, Mass.; Lu Lingzi, 23, a Chinese national and Boston University graduate student from Shenyang, Liaoning; and Martin William Richard, 8, from the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston — around the course.
“You always see the flowers remembering Martin and the victims in general,” Bierhals said. “I don't think anybody should ever forget that.”
Bierhals finished the 2013 race nearly two hours before the explosions and was off the course and back at his hotel before any of the chaos ensued. He never feels any fear about returning to Boston and taking the 26.2-mile jaunt.
“I'm a firm believer that if it's going to happen, it's going to happen,” he said.
Marathons have become important to him since he started running as a means to lose weight and completed his first Pittsburgh Marathon in 2005. Boston soon became one in which he wanted to take part.
“It was the one everyone talks about,” Bierhals said of the only marathon for which would-be participants have to qualify. “When I qualified for the first time, I didn't go for financial reasons. Then I qualified again and thought this might be my last chance so I better go.”
Bierhals already booked his hotel room for 2016 and will trek to Beantown once again.
“It's the 120th anniversary of the race,” He said. “That's very important to me.”
Paul Paterra is a staff editor for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-887-6101 or ppaterra@tribweb.com.
