{"id":4386,"date":"2014-04-21T17:08:36","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T21:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/?p=4386"},"modified":"2014-04-22T09:06:58","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T13:06:58","slug":"families-from-near-and-far-cheer-on-relatives-running-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/families-from-near-and-far-cheer-on-relatives-running-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Families From Near and Far Cheer on Relatives Running Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Andrea Timpano<br \/>\n<em>BU News Service<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As crowds gathered in Kenmore Square to cheer on runners of the 118th Boston Marathon, one group of spectators stood out from the rest. They wore navy blue t-shirts with red lettering, the name of their hometown \u2014 Blackduck, Minnesota, emblazoned across their backs. The front of their shirts displayed the \u201cBoston Strong\u201d slogan, the mantra that has united the city in the year since the violence of last year\u2019s Marathon Monday. <\/p>\n<p>Six relatives of Nate Lien, a competitor in this year\u2019s race, wore the shirts. Lien, 37, made the decision to register for the Boston Marathon after the bombings in 2013. He planned to retire from road marathons after completing his last race, says his wife, Meghan Lien, but he reconsidered in light of the tragedy. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe thought this was one he definitely wanted to do,\u201d Meghan Lien says, adding that Lien is a first-time Boston Marathon runner.<\/p>\n<p>Being in Boston for this year\u2019s marathon was important to Lien\u2019s entire family. <\/p>\n<p>Lien\u2019s cousin, Nicole Miller, says the family wanted to be here to show their support for the runners. Still, the family says they were not without concerns. Given the events of last year, they decided it would be safer to watch from Kenmore Square than to venture near the finish line.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI must admit I was worried.\u201d Meghan Lien says, standing near the 25-mile marker outside Eastern Standard restaurant. \u201cThat\u2019s why I didn\u2019t bring our children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite their concerns, Miller says they booked their hotel rooms in the city before they knew if Lien had even qualified to compete. \u201cWe would have come no matter what,\u201d Miller says. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minnesota family offers show of support for runner and city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"coauthors":[13],"class_list":["post-4386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-runners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4386"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4393,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4386\/revisions\/4393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4386"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}