Nashville Double Amputee Rolling in Boston Marathon

Wounded Nashville vet in today's Boston Marathon
The Tennessean
Heidi Hall
April 21, 2014

(Photo: Photos by John Partipilo / The Tennessean )

What Marine-turned-marathoner Benjamin Maenza calls his arrogance, other people might call his valor. Or tenacity.

Or insanity.

Because Maenza finished his first marathon in 2011, only a year after an IED in Afghanistan efficiently shredded both his legs to above the knee. He used a handcycle to churn out those 26.2 miles without a day's training, and he was hooked.

At 9:22 a.m. today in Boston, the Lipscomb University student will start his seventh marathon. But this one will be like none he's finished before.

He will meet people who lost their limbs — not defending their nation overseas as he did, but because they simply wanted the exhilaration of running in the world's most famous marathon. Three people died and more than 250 were injured when a bomb exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line on April 15, 2013. Some survivors are expected back, some of them in handcycles such as Maenza's.
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