Today's 15-miler went well. I finished in 2:03:52, which is 8:15/mile pace. I thought about many things during the course of that time, but an odd flicker from a Seinfeld episode had the most impact. I seem to remember that a storyline from one of their shows was about an elite Haitian runner who had come to New York to compete in the marathon. I think the punchline was that somehow he overslept the morning of the race, and missed it.
How did the writers decide the runner would be Haitian? That impoverished, star-crossed country is not known to have produced very many world-class athletes, let alone marathoners. The vague memory of that show made me think about what a luxury it is to have two hours to do nothing but run for the sake of running. Not running from poverty, or machete-wielding thugs, or government corruption, or natural disasters. Just running because I wanted to, and I had the time.
Ever since there has been a Haiti, there has been suffering. Its problems seem so intractable, that they are almost a legacy that gets passed from one generation to the next, not just in that country, which is the poorest in our hemisphere, but in our country as well, the richest.
Haiti is on my mind tonight, and I feel committed to doing what I can to help. If anything positive can come from the devastating earthquake, hopefully it will be that the world decides that this generation is the one that pulled Haiti up from the rubble and abetted its renaissance.
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