BOSTON 2018 INSPIRATION

May Flowers. Taken by PKSenagore May 5, 2017. All rights reserved.

YES, THE 2017 BOSTON MARATHON IS IN THE HISTORY BOOKS.  Is it too early to be inspired to run your own 2018 race that day (OR ANY OTHER RACE, ANY OTHER DAY), even if you cannot qualify, have no hope of covering that distance anywhere/anytime, cannot travel, or aren’t even running now? Read on to learn why it's not.
 
I happened upon this article ”How I Came To Run the Boston Marathon in Prison on a Treadmill”  recently, written in December 2016 for Runner’s World by Keith Giroux. The story, told by the then imprisoned runner in the first person, embodies what Earned Runs preaches: design your own race (and use Earned Runs bibs to help, which he would not have been able to request online, even if he had known about them). This Massachusetts  inmate’s treadmill event occurred in April 2016.
 
The article tells how Giroux became inspired to start running, then inspired by a prison clinician to run ‘his’ Boston Marathon at the same time as the spring classic. But without running shoes, and almost without a water bottle! There were so, so many issues that presented obstacles to his goal of running the 26.2 mile distance. It was exhausting just reading about the difficulties he encountered before receiving permission to and then while running 4+ hours consecutively on a machine that would shut down automatically after each hour for safety reasons.
 
It’s a long article.  But definitely worth reading in detail.  Considering the freedoms possessed by those of us on the ‘outside’ to prepare for and compete in races, we have no basis on which to complain about the inconveniences or toughness of our training regimens.
 
Earned Runs bibs are perfect for runners who wish to participate in the spirit of an event and especially if they don’t face the issues raised by incarceration, like Keith Giroux. Request bibs for training inspiration and for racing “in spirit’ in a far-away event.
 
RUN HAPPY!

http://www.earned-runs.com/request-bibscontact.html
 
http://www.runnersworld.com/other-voices/how-i-came-to-run-the-boston-marathon-in-prison-on-a-treadmill