Palm Trees and a Marathon

The Sandy cleanup continues, the relief efforts are still taking place. As of Friday morning, I still thought I was running a marathon; a decision that had become increasingly hard during Thursday night and into Friday morning. Groups appeared on Facebook saying the runners were insensitive, people threatened to stage protests along the route. It was a hard decision to run, and a harder one still to feel like the hard work was all for nothing.

I finally had the chance to take the boat over to Manhattan – something I have wanted to do since I moved here. And all I could think of was “not like this”; not when people have no homes, when a supposedly joyous event was now under a huge cloud, and not when I felt guilty and generally miserable for choosing to continue to run.

Feeling somewhere between sad and lost, I went to the expo with MeriG and we were both in the, literally, same boat, emotionally and morally (Get the nautical theme? It would be amusing if not for the fact that the damn boat is going to be the bane of my existence.) We propped each other up. We looked at the pretty gear we coudn’t afford. And we grimly but happily decided that this marathon was going to be run and we would have accomplished something huge at the end.

Smiling...finally

So still, with a heavy heart, I went home and passed on the supportive feelings to a stranger, also waiting for the return boat. She was as tearful as I, until I said: “I’m going to tell you what my friend told me: we didn’t make the decision to hold the marathon. We are running it. If it’s happening no matter what, why not participate? It’s there, so we should take advantage of it.” She visibly cheered after we spoke, and I felt a little better that these really hard feelings were across the board.

And then. My bag was packed. I’d finally organized where I could stay. I was ready to go.

And then. The texts came in. Cancelled. Cancelled. Cancelled.

At this point, I wasn’t even upset that it was cancelled – okay, maybe a little bit – but the stress we’d all gone through this week into that day was just so great that…well, let’s just say two full bottles of wine were consumed.

And then…

(Source)

Once I’d eaten a whole pizza Saturday and cleaned myself up, I decided several things. One, I was going to run on Sunday. And two, I was going to volunteer after my run.

Both were duly completed. The third decision? Another marathon…and so…

I AM GOING TO RUN THE MIAMI MARAHON

Training has already started again. The marathon is January 27th and my fundraising, work and spirit will go on. The best part? MeriG and some of her teammates are also running it.

Bring it on Miami. Bring it on Palm Trees.

Going to Miami...