Since she finished the Boston Marathon, four minutes before the bombs went off, “it hasn’t taken more than a second to create a cry-fest,” Lauren Case said.



Rather than merely feeling sad and helpless, she decided to do something about it.



On the day after the marathon tragedy, Case, who lives in California, joined a defiant, impromptu, grassroots dusk four-miler out of a dive bar in East Cambridge, with nearly 300 other runners who came together in only a few hours using word of mouth and social media.



“The running world to me is my second family,” Case said. “I don’t know how else to express it. I just felt the need to surround myself with people who are in the same space I am.”



The runners fought rush-hour traffic made worse by continued street closings in the heart of Boston, just across the Charles River, and greeted each other with hugs, “where-were-you”s, and “I’m-definitely-running-it-next-year”s.



They eventually organized themselves in the parking lot behind the Courtside Bar, where there were cathartic speeches through a megaphone and a 26.2-second moment of silence.



Then they took to the streets, where drivers honked in support, pedestrians took photos with their phones, and cyclists and other runners waved and smiled. A Cambridge Fire Department truck flashed its lights.



The group ran along both banks of the Charles River, growing quiet at the view of night falling over the skyline of the still-traumatized city.



“Because you attack one race, you won’t stop us from doing what we love,” said one, Kristine Antczak, 39, an event planner. “Boston has a very scrappy spirit. It’s hell-bent and determined.”



Running groups that are usually good-natured rivals joined for the run, and the people who showed up donated more than $3,000; the bar kicked in about another $1,000.



The BAA logo—a unicorn, symbolizing something to pursue that can never be caught—was ubiquitous. Several of the runners wore Boston Marathon shirts from this or other years.



Back at the bar, returning runners made a tunnel to applaud each other. By the time the whole group had arrived, it was two blocks long. Sadness turned to cheers, smiles, and high-fives.



“Running is so positive in every way,” said Ben Meade, a 30-year-old geologist and two-time Boston finisher. “It brings out the best of humanity.”



A runner who is also a graphic designer, David Ziegler-Voll, made “bibs” in BAA colors with the number 2013 and a dove carrying an olive leaf.



“This has so deeply saddened me,” said Ziegler-Voll, who is 40. “Not that other tragedies are more or less significant. But this one touched me. This is my city.”



Many of the runners, as seems often true of people who live in Boston and nearby, were from someplace else, and moved here for a job or to go to college. Ziegler-Voll, for instance, came from Arizona; Antczak, from New Orleans.



Running, for them, had provided a sense of belonging in a city not known always for its warmth.



“I didn’t consider myself a runner before I moved to Boston,” said Mary Beth Totten, who moved here from New Hampshire. “It’s how I made friends.”



And when her boss called off work, Totten said, she needed to be with them, even though she lives an hour away from the Courtside.



“I had to see my friends,” she said. “We run together. That’s what we do.”

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