Kittery man running Boston Marathon for Martin Richard, boy killed in 2013 bombings

KITTERY, Maine — Days after three people were killed and hundreds were maimed in the Boston Marathon bombings, first-grade teacher Nikolas Franks, his co-teacher and their class of young students sang “I’ll Fly Away” in their classroom as grief clouded over their school community.

The deadly terrorist attack was orchestrated by two brothers who set off two pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon finish line on April 15, 2013.

Jane Richard, a first-grade student in Franks' class at the time in Dorchester, Massachusetts, was badly wounded and lost her leg. Jane’s older brother, 8-year-old Martin Richard, who had been a student in Franks’ class two years earlier, died as a result of the attack.

Franks, who came to support a friend running the race and met up with them afterward, was at the Prudential Center eating burgers as the explosions occurred. A news alert about the bombings came across his Twitter feed, so Franks and his friend evacuated, walking past the finish line and passing officers toting assault rifles. Another one of Franks’ friends loaned them a car, allowing them to drive back to Franks’ north Cambridge apartment, where they followed news on the tragedy.

When Franks' boss called to tell him Martin Richard had died in the bombings, Franks collapsed to the floor.

Tearfully recalling the devastating conversation this week, Franks shared that particular moment is the hardest for him to speak about.

“I remember just losing complete function of my body,” Franks recounted inside Lil’s Cafe this week, donning a “Run for Martin” long sleeve T-shirt.

“And then they said it sounded like Jane was injured, too, and that she was at the hospital. It was the worst feeling of my life to have that happen,” he said. “As a teacher, especially in the younger grades, you have this feeling that you need to protect those kids. They’re sort of like your own kids. You work so hard to protect their emotions and help them learn.”

Loss of Martin Richard has stayed with Nikolas Franks

A decade later, Franks is a stay-at-home Kittery father who serves on the town’s School Committee. He is preparing to run in his third Boston Marathon next month to honor his fallen student through the Martin Richard Foundation.

The 2023 Boston Marathon on April 17 marks the 10-year anniversary of the bombings, which were followed by a multi-day manhunt for the perpetrators, causing the city to shut down. A few days after the attacks, Franks was back in the classroom with his students, fielding questions about the status of their classmate Jane, who missed the rest of the academic year and underwent several surgeries while mourning her brother's death. He helped his students while navigating his own grief.

"Everybody rallied around that family, it felt like, in Boston," he said.

In January 2014, less than a year after the attacks, Denise and Bill Richard, Martin’s parents, formed the Martin Richard Foundation and began to recruit people to run the upcoming Boston Marathon in memory of their son.

Then considering himself to be a “hobby jogger,” Franks heard of the foundation’s goal and was determined to join the team with just three months of training.

To honor Martin, his wounded sister and the “wonderful” Richard family, he said, the goal didn’t seem too far-fetched.

“Martin and Jane were both the kids that you could rely on,” Franks said. “Martin was a bit quiet, but always had this spark, a great sense of humor. He would slide these little jokes in, and it would take you a second to pick up on the fact that it was a joke. He was a really calming sense in the classroom. Jane was a bit different. When she was in kindergarten, Jane had a band called ‘Jane and the Janettes’... Jane has always been sort of a spitfire. We still have a pretty great relationship.”

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Making the leap to marathons

When he consulted his father, an avid marathoner himself, on his ambitions, Franks was told that there was no chance he’d be able to physically adapt to the 26.2-mile course in such a short window of time.

But when Franks explained his motivation and desire to run in Martin’s memory, his father changed course.

“He said, ‘Oh, absolutely. You’ll absolutely make it, no problem,’” Franks remembers his father remarking. “I started training, it was during that first week in January, and I was able to run a respectable marathon through the coaching of my dad.”

Franks still has race gear from that inaugural trek: a neon orange 2014 Boston Marathon jacket which he still wears.

“It kicked me into running,” he said. “I had run 5k (races) and stuff. My dad is a big runner, he always ran Boston, so the Boston Marathon was always a big deal in my life, but I never really had any dreams of running it.”

The next year, he ran with the foundation again in the 2015 Boston Marathon, joined by his wife, Amanda - the last time he competed in Beantown’s beloved tradition.

But in the eight years since, Franks has not only seen vast improvement in his finish times. Though humble about his achievements, he’s become a prolific marathon runner capable of placing near the top of the pack and ran in races across the nation.

His personal best? At the Loco Marathon in Newmarket last fall, Franks completed the race in 2:52:49, good for fourth overall among all participants. Returning to the Virgin Islands, his family’s former home, earlier this year, Franks was crowned the men’s victor of the St. Croix Scenic 50, a 31-mile race beginning and ending at Cane Bay Beach.

In this year’s Boston Marathon, the 127th running of the race, Franks, currently rehabbing a torn MCL sustained during a pond hockey game this winter, will be running with the MR8 Tribute Team, a group of 50 runners associated with the Martin Richard Foundation.

Millions of dollars raised but meaning of Boston Marathon is much deeper

Per a release from the foundation, for which 1,000-plus runners have run over 23,000 miles and raised more than $6 million since its formation, the marathon tribute team is comprised of Martin’s old teachers, coaches, and friends. Martin’s older brother, Henry Richard, who emotionally completed his first Boston Marathon last year, is serving as the team’s captain.

The Richard family reached out to Franks, who still communicates with the family and visited Jane in the hospital after the bombings, just after the Loco Marathon to see if he’d want to run with the team. Despite nursing the knee injury, he resoundingly agreed and is eager to focus less on his progression as a runner with this race.

“Knowing that I was going to be there running for the Martin Richard Foundation is an opportunity to focus my energy in a different way. I’m going to go in and enjoy this. I’m going to soak in the beauty of the Boston Marathon,” he said. “It’s almost a nostalgia for that first running that I did. It was incredibly cathartic for me to train and run the Boston Marathon the first year after the bombings.”

The foundation, aiming to advance Martin’s values of sportsmanship, inclusion, kindness and peace, promotes a message from a photograph of the child that went viral after his death. In that image, Martin holds a handmade sign which reads: “No More Hurting People. Peace.”

Bill Richard released a prepared statement through the foundation ahead of the 2023 Boston Marathon.

“When we think about Martin, we think about all of his friends and classmates who are now 18 and taking on the world as young adults,” he said. “We are so proud of how actively engaged they were over the last 10 years in improving themselves and their community and the example they have set for the next generation of young people. This is an important year for so many reasons, but mostly because these young people give us hope.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kittery man running Boston Marathon to honor Jane and Martin Richard