Were you aware?

I don't watch much "real-time" tv anymore.  I LOVE tv, but I simply don't have the time between the day job, the weekend job, school work and this triathlon thing.  So when I watch tv, it's usually recordings or neflix streams of my favorite shows.  Since my divorce I'm no longer forced to sit and watch FoxNews and I'm never home in time to watch the evening news, nor can I stay up to catch the late news. So maybe I'm just out of touch.  (I do like this itsy bitsy world I've created in my own little bubble.  We all stay pretty happy in here for the most part...)

But I do read a lot of news alerts and daily headlines for my real job, so the fact that I heard not even a whisper surprised me.  Maybe it will surprise you too, or like I said maybe I'm just out of touch.

Were you aware that the trial of Dzhokar Tsarvaev started this past Wednesday?  You remember Dzhokar.  He and his brother thought it a great idea to place two pressure cooker bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.  You notice I'm not using "alleged."  Dzhokar's lawyer said yes, he did it.  That fact isn't in dispute, they all admit it.  The why and how he came to do it is really what is in question, basically to save him from the ultimate penalty.  But I'm not here writing to get all political or discuss legal mumbo jumbo.

Yesterday was the first full day of witness testimonies. I was reading some of the accounts and it immediately took me back to that day.  It's not that I had forgotten, but the mental images of the pictures and news reports played like a slideshow in my mind.  And it forced me to truly remember.

I urge you to remember.  I urge you to read the testimonies, to view new images and footage.

I urge you to go run.  Any distance, a quarter mile, a mile, whatever, and be thankful for the feet that carry you and the heart that propels you forward, to keep moving, to keep dreaming.

And if you have people in your life, I urge you to hug them or squeeze their hand....somehow let them know how important they are to you and that your life is better with them in it.

#runforyou
#runforthem
#runforboston

Keep crossing that finish line

Just like countless others, I'm struggling to make sense of it all.  The usual questions....who would do such a thing?  Why would they do such a thing?  How could they do such a thing?  And of course, we are offered the usual lack of answers.  I don't say that flippantly   I mean honestly, how could something like this, something so unreasonable, be reasonably explained?

And now we add the question, why a marathon?  Why something so pure and harmless that does nothing but promote life, happiness and celebrates the human spirit?  And why choose the time when it was mostly the weekend athletes crossing as their friends and families cheered them in?  These everyday people; our brothers, our neighbors, our extended running family that we have never met?

We train.  We run.  We test ourselves in these grand events and we each do it for our own reasons.  Running is so many things to me.  It keeps me fit.  It keeps me sane.  It introduced me to a new way of life, new friends.  It keeps me alive in so many ways.  Some run for the pure joy it brings.  Some run to celebrate life.  Some run to remember loved ones.  Some run to even save lives.  And now?

Well, now we will all run to honor the lives lost and lives forever altered in Boston.  Don't stop running.  We're endurance athletes....we know how to be strong, to be resilient, we know how to be in it for the long haul.  They need us to keep going.  They need us to keep crossing that finish line.

I want to cross that finish line.  I want to cross for those who can't.  I want to cross for those whose spirit may be shaken.  And I especially want to cross for whomever decided it was a good idea to place explosives in trash cans.  Yes.  I want to run for YOU.  Because I want to show YOU that we WILL keep going.  The best way to get me to do something? Go ahead and tell me I can't.

Join me.  Refuse to let that finish line symbolize loss.  Let it symbolize life.

Don't let them tell us we can't.