The scene of the bombings was horrific, with initial images coming in through social media feeds of runners down holding severed legs, of pieces of shredded meat on the pavement, of sidewalks painted with blood. It was a vision of carnage one does not unsee.

Amid the horror and the shock of the bombing, there were heroes. The first responders and spectators who immediately ran to the fallen while everybody else ran the other way, using whatever they had on hand to stop the bleeding and save lives. Some runners who crossed the blasted finish line just kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood.

Bob Hartwig, head of the Insurance Information Institute, was at the scene. His son was in the race, and thankfully, neither was hurt in the either blast. His tweeting from the scene immediately drove home that the insurance world is not nearly as big as we like to think that it is. Indeed, no world is that small, anymore, and as the shockwaves of horror and disbelief spread from Boston, that much became true.

But what now? An event such as this, which intentionally strikes at a number of our soft spots simultaneously, will surely provoke some kind of response. The bombing reminds us all of the risk of terror, though it is not immediately clear what the insurable context of this particular incident will be. From a risk management perspective, the Boston marathon bombings only underscore what every runner has known for a long time: that urban marathons are especially difficult events to secure and to police. Not only do they feature an unusually long field of play, but their very nature is such that spectators are supposed to get very close to the runners. Running a marathon is a solo, grueling effort even for those who have trained properly for them. To get the cheer and support of spectators is very much part of the sport's culture and its participants' expectations. And while the Boston route was patrolled initially, the bomb appears to have been deposited by a spectator after the race got underway. Having spectated at a few half-marathons and one marathon myself, I can see how it might have happened. I can also imagine myself, and my young son, as having been among the bombing victims. In another race, in another city, that could just as easily have been us bleeding out among the wreckage.

Can there even be the same kind of marathoning if all who would cheer the runners must be screened and kept at a safe distance? At this point, one can easily imagine that proper event security would demand it. Or is the proper risk management for this to accept that marathons are events of vulnerability, and that the way to react to terror is to not let it change us? Given that this act could very well be the singleton act of an evil or sick person, that might be the way to go. Easy for me to say, of course…I have not yet run in a marathon, let alone one after the Boston bombing. Nor have I taken the responsibility for thousands of runners.

John Hancock has supported the Boston Marathon for many years. I can only imagine the pride that firm has taken in being such a prominent partner of what is truly one of the world's top athletic events. The suddenness of the tragedy underscore in brutal terms the tragedy we all must safeguard against, be it an act of shocking violence, or the many other ways in which a family might find itself cut adrift from normality, suddenly cast upon a sea of grief and uncertainty. I have always admired how professionals in the life and health world view such events, as they maintain a special perspective on this. Theirs is the business of deeply personal loss, and at a time like this, they are some of the few who can process this on a level many cannot.

Even now, there are events both in Boston and elsewhere to rally around those affected by this event. A silent run held in Atlanta honored the falling, while a scheduled 5K walk organized by Boston College students aims to give those runners who did not finish the marathon (which was immediately suspended upon the bombings) a chance to go the rest of the distance. Events such as these seek to balm the hurt the rest of us feel over such an event: marathoning is a sport in which runners help each other, where nobody boos, and where the participants celebrate their own personal quest for excellence above all other things. Running is a sport that is conducted alone, but in a marathon, you realizes you are part of a community. And as a member of that community whether you run or whether you aid or cheer, you realize that solitude is a state of mind. That you are surrounded by those who seek to build you up and move you forward. And that for some sick and twisted reason, somebody out there felt that made for an ideal thing to destroy.

In the insurance world, there never is destruction. There is only loss. And even in a total loss, there is always recovery. Regeneration. And so it will be with Boston and its magnificent marathon, and with all those who have been so heartsick over the bombing. The humanity that was wounded will be the very thing that carries on and runs that next mile. And the mile after that, and the mile after that. For in the human race, there is no finish line. There is only the road, and the strength to go on, no matter how hard the course.