Nikolas Franks, who had been teaching elementary school in the Boston area for the last five years, was on St. Croix in January, visiting “home” for the holidays, when he first caught wind of what Team MR8 planned to do for this year’s Boston Marathon.
This will be the first since last year’s race was marred by the terrorist bombing near the race’s finish line that left three dead and more than 260 maimed and wounded.
Franks, a graduate of the Good Hope School, had been at that race and was just around the corner when the bombs went off. In the event’s aftermath, with public transportation shut down, he spent hours and “great energy” trying to get home to Cambridge.
But the news Boston media reported that early January day, some nine months after the attack, while Franks enjoyed some time with the family on island, was that Team MR8 had been officially formed for 8-year-old Martin Richard by Richard’s family.
Martin was one of the victims killed at last year’s Boston Marathon as he watched it with his siblings. Just a few years before, Martin was one of Franks’ 1st-grade students. During last year’s bombings, Martin’s younger sister, Jane, was a student in Franks’ class.
Jane not only lost her brother in the blasts, she also lost her leg.
“Both were a treat to have,” Franks said.
After the bombings, a photo of Martin holding a sign with the hand-lettered words, "No more hurting people – peace," became an iconic symbol that is now tragically linked with the 2013 Boston Marathon.
The charitable foundation formed in his name would be his legacy, and his family plans to invest in education, athletics and community. It would also be a way for the family to “‘pay it forward’ and make a difference in ways that would make him proud, and also provide a source of healing and purpose for us,” the Richard family said in a statement.
“I’ve said before, they’re (the Richard family) sort of like a beacon of strength for all of Boston in their resilience through all of this,” Franks said. “It’s pretty astounding.”
He said he collapsed after receiving the phone call of what had happened to his student and former student. He said he’s never reacted to anything like that before or since.
“Nothing hits so hard as losing a child that is or was under your care, because your number-one job as a teacher is to make sure they’re safe and loved, but when you lose one it really affects you,” he said. “That was really hard.”
Franks, a co-teacher and their 20 or so students, all went through the emotions of dealing with that loss and the scared feeling of the unknown and that helplessness that comes with it, over the coming weeks and months.
“They brought me through in a positive way mostly because I had this community going through the same thing I was,” Franks said of his class.
The foundation’s first objective, and what caught Franks’ ear especially, was to recruit a team of runners for the Boston Marathon on April 21. Their mission is, “To honor Martin’s message of ‘No more hurting people – peace.’ ”
Runners wishing to join had to commit to raising $7,500 for the foundation and had about 10 days to apply to be considered for one of the 20 or so race spots available. Runners who qualified for the marathon based on race times and other standard criteria would be allowed to join the team if they committed to raising $2,000.
When Franks heard of the formation of Team MR8, he asked his dad, Will, who works at V.I. Legal Services and is a veteran of countless New York City and Boston Marathons, not to mention all those Cane Bay five-milers, if he could in fact train for and run in the Boston Marathon in a few months having never run a marathon in his life.
Franks recalled what his father told him.
“Zero percent. There was no way I could do it because I wasn’t a runner at all,” he said.
When Franks explained to his dad why he wanted to run the race, and what Team MR8 was about, dad’s tune changed immediately.
“Oh yeah, yeah,” Franks recalled his dad saying. “You can definitely, oh you can get there.”
Franks applied, along with about 300 other people, and then sweated it out a few weeks waiting for the team to be announced. It was Jane – Martin’s younger sister – who actually broke the news to him that he’d made the team before the official announcement came. Bumping into Franks in the school nurse’s office, Jane told him jokingly he needed to grow back the mustache he had last year if he was going to run. Franks complied; almost surprised that his big “burly” stash from the past was partly behind his selection. He now calls it, “my mustache for Martin.”
Since making Team MR8, Franks has been training with advice from Will, who’s helped his son manage the aches and pains, the tiredness and desire for more sleep, and the increased appetite.
Will said he’s helped his son learn to manage his body, and learn how to recognize when to back off, and let your body rest.
“A lot of people just don’t make it. They blow up along the way and get injured,” Will said. “It’s so easy to get injured when you’re trying to pull this off in just a few months.”
To add to his training stress, Nikolas also recently moved away from Boston to be with his girlfriend, Amanda, in Vermont, and on top of all that, he’s taken up a new vocation in carpentry.
The training has been laborious, full of tight hamstrings and sore Achilles tendons. Those long runs, eventually up to 20 miles, are necessary, though, to build up to running a marathon, and for Franks this past winter in New England, they’ve come in some downright frigid temperatures.
Franks has largely been spared from any major injuries that could end his chances of competing. But injuries run deeper than just the physical kind. For Franks and Team MR8, this is the first Boston Marathon since the bombing, and as Franks pointed out, that yearlong effort will prove the year has also been about coping and healing and learning how to move on with life in a positive way.
“When I heard about this and the foundation, it just came together as the perfect opportunity to work through the emotions that just the idea of the Boston Marathon brought up,” he said, mentioning at one point he’d even sought help in the last year through a counselor.
“I’ve really, really struggled with it. I just really didn’t know what to make of such deep badness because I’d just never experienced anything like that before,” he said.
“But knowing the marathon was going to happen again and knowing everyone would in a way have to relive it again, the idea to be part of it and be running it for Martin and his memory … it was just the perfect, perfect way to deal with all these emotions that I had.”
Will’s very first marathon was Boston 1973, and he’s planning to travel from St. Croix to attend the race this year with his wife and Nikolas’ mother, Cat Austin Franks, a preschool teacher at the Stone House Preschool.
He said he wouldn’t miss it.
“I’m so proud of him and kind of overwhelmed by the whole thing, him putting everything into this,” Will said. “He’s had a tough year since this happened, and this is one way of working through it in a real positive way. I’m really happy he’s doing it. Just talking about it chokes me up.”
He added with a chuckle that he’s really just “trying to get him to the starting line.”
Kevin Hensley, who attended Good Hope with Franks and now operates H.H. Tire and Battery, said his company was supporting Franks with a donation because the cause is good and like him, they also like to help those in need when they can and the idea of ‘paying it forward.’
“It does not surprise me that he is doing something like this,” Hensley said.
Despite the short time frame to prepare and his lack of experience in running a marathon, Franks hasn’t shied away from what he set out to do, and said his determination to achieve it has never been an issue.
“I sort of have this huge goal that I just have a definite need to accomplish, and anytime I’m struggling to get out there, all I have to do is think about why I’m doing it,” he said. “And when I do that I’ve never had any problems in trying to motivate myself. The motivation is so enormous for this race.”
Franks at one point called the Boston Marathon “sacred.” On another occasion, he said it was “the most prestigious marathon in the world.”
Will hadn’t yet thought of what final piece of advice he might give his son on race day, but he said for sure there would be a big hug telling him how proud he was.
“For me it will be a reflection on those years that he was there as a child and seeing me finish, and now the roles are reversed,” Will said. “It’s sort of a reflection of one’s life.”
Not to mention a special reflection on those three lives lost and the hundreds more whose lives were forever changed in last year’s race.
As of March 28, Team MR8 has 100 runners competing in the April 21 Boston Marathon. Since January the group has raised more than $665,000 for the Martin W. Richard Charitable Foundation with a stated goal being $750,000. Nikolas Franks was just shy of $8,000 when this was posted and had 81 supporters behind him. More information on supporting Nikolas, Team MR8 and the Martin W. Richard Charitable Foundation can be found online at http://teammr8.org/
