Sitting here at Folsom Street Coffee, I am inspired.
Bracken and I are watching about 53,000 people running the Bolder Boulder. It’s one of the largest road races in the country (4th, I think?) and it goes right through our neighborhood.
I’ve run it a few times over the years (it was my very first run over 4 miles back in 2001), but I decided to watch it today. I admit I’m kinda wishing I was running it right now… the weather is perfect and the energy is amazing.
However, my dominant feeling is inspiration. All sizes. All shapes. All athletic abilities. Costumes. Smiles. Tears. Looks of ease running next to looks of pure torture. Dads running with their daughters. Grandmothers, teenagers, families together, friends in support of each other, folks running alone, pushing their limits. Folks in wheelchairs, the overweight, the injured, the young, the old, the determined. The newbie and the veterans and the slightly bewildered.
I heard a quote a few weeks ago on “The BIggest Loser” that made me sad. One of the contestants said, “Fat people don’t run marathons.” It was in the context of one of the final challenges where the contestants were, in fact, running a marathon and were amazed that they’d done it.
But what made me sad was that there’s this perception that only skinny or super-fit people do something like {gasp!} run.
So I wish, as I sit and watch such a deep breadth of shapes and ages run, that everyone could see the possibilities before them.
