The Spirit of a New York Marathon Runner

Sometimes in life things happen that we cannot control.

As a resident living on the Gulf Coast for 35 years, I have experienced many hurricanes and have been prepared for them since I was kid.

But last week the New York area experienced something that they were not prepared for. And there was no way for them to have known what was coming.

As a runner, the canceling of the New York Marathon was heartbreaking for me. No, I wasn't one of the thousands of people lining up at the start line or one of the volunteers signed up to spend a whole weekend setting up, handing out water, or even one of the thousands of fans ready to line the street cowbell in hand. But I do know what it takes to get to that start line. These runners don't just leisurely go to the park and run a couple miles a few times a week or go to the local gym and run on the treadmill for 45 minutes. They spend many months training for this one run. The workouts, the diet, the sacrifices take on a whole new meaning when you are training to run 26.2 miles at one of the countries most elite races.

 

There have been a lot of speculation about why they waited so long to cancel the race. Some say it was because of the resources needed to used in cleanup instead of powering a finish line. Some say that it was because the mayor wanted all of these tourist/runners to show up and spend money and he was always going to cancel the race. You can go on any social media sight and find a million reasons as to why people "think" it was canceled.

I even have my own opinion about the reasons. Personally I think it was for the safety of the runners. Lots of runners were expressing on blogs, Twitter, etc that they hoped the spectators would be nice and respectful to the runners during the race. So safety issues were on peoples minds. If that was part of the reasoning than I stand by the decision 100%.

 

I have friends that were in New York for the race. Talking to them Friday after the announcement was made that it was canceled gave me a chill. Most of them were in the Central Park area where it appeared life was somewhat back to normal. However outside the city it was total devastation. So as I leave you on this beautiful fall day, remember that runners don't show up to just RUN.

They show up for charity.

 They show up for redemption.

They show up for family.

They show up for friends.

They show up for pride.

They show up in crisis.

And they will show up for New York!

 

If you ever had any doubt that runners are special people. A wonderful friend of mine Amanda from Run To The Finish posted this video yesterday at the Finish line area of the race. It will touch your heart. 

 

So the next time you hear someone talking about the New York marathon runners, or runners in general, remind them that there may be a time they need us to show up for them.