Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Running This Week

For the past week or so I have been making mental notes as to what to say in my next blog posting here. It was to be about my recent trip and race experience to Washington DC to run in the 40th annual Cherry Blossom 10 Miler. Needless to say, the events at the Boston Marathon this week have sort of placed a damper on my thoughts. I still intend to post a summary of my experiences, all which were good by the way, it's just that I don't believe my race experiences are all that important this week.

I will say however, that the Cherry Blossom Race starts and finishes at the base of the Washington Monument. The race features a field of nearly 18,000 runners including many world class elite runners. In fact this year the 10 Mile race was the USATF National Championship for women runners. The morning sun had yet to rise as I arrived to the race staging and finish area and the number of runners began to swell. As the crowd drew larger I thought to myself that this would be a great opportunity for a terrorist to set a bomb and cause great havoc and worse. Imagine, thousands of runners and the Washington Monument!

I have actually had similar thoughts at many races since 2001.  While running over the Ambassador Bridge and through the Detroit Windsor Tunnel during the Detroit Marathon or Half Marathon I had envisioned a bomb blast to occur exactly as I hit the mid point of the bridge or tunnel!  Then while running in the NY City Marathon in 2008, the same thoughts occurred while running the bridges in NYC.  Fortunately back then nothing whatsoever occurred.

While Bostonians, the country, most of the world, and all of the running community across the world shares in the morning and grief from the Boston blast, we also are grateful that those of us who had friends or family there competing all came home safely. Our RF 501 training group had about 10 people represented and while there were a few very close calls, and some "shake-ups" everyone is OK.

I promise to share my race and travel experiences soon so please continue to check back here.  Thanks for taking a few moments to read this.

Run Very Happy today! 

Lee