So miraculously, all 33 of the Chilean miners have been rescued. I remember before I registered to run in a four mile race in Van Cortlandt Park, I asked my friend Wendy who was running her very first race- if she and her four relatives that she managed to talk into joining her- if they all wanted to run as a team in support of the miners. This was back on August 29, when the miners had already spent 24 days trapped underground. I thought we'd call our team 'Mucha Fuerza' to encourage them. Turned out you couldn't just make up a team on the spot. So I ran that race thinking about those guys, and thinking about how any pain I was enduring was nothing compared with their situation. Then I thought about the estimated rescue timeline of four months. I thought about how it would be November, and the New York City Marathon would be taking place, and those guys would still be stuck down there. A whole season without natural light. I didn't want to think about that too much, because it's a little too much to fathom. Then I got a call from Wendy, a couple of months later. The rescue mission had begun. By October 13, all 33 of the miners were safely above ground. Only the week before I had made up my mind to run in the upcoming marathon. I had been accepted a while ago, but felt unprepared to run it, so I hadn't trained for it at all. Then one day I came across a runner with a prosthetic leg who was slightly ahead of me. I caught up with him, and we completed one loop of Central Park together. I was fascinated with his stories and plight, and inspired by his positive attitude. I finished that loop in a faster time than I'd run all year. That run decided it for me. A month is not a lot of time to prepare yourself to run a marathon. So here I am, a week before the big day, and I have only run one long run, which was only 18 miles. Today I found out that there's another guy who wasn't really able to prepare properly for this endurance race, but he's not letting that stop him either. And for you boxing fans, please excuse the lack of proper competitor stats formatting text-this is the no-frills version due to lack of options on blogger. No one's perfect.
Tamar
Home Town: New York, NY; Weekly Mileage from 8/05/10 - 10/13/10: Around 30; Races Run from 8/5/10 - 10/23/10: X-Country 5k 25:31 Thetford, VT 8/17/10; X-Country 4M 31:53Bronx, NY 8/29/10; Half Marathon 1:42:50 Staten Is, NY 10/10/10; RunTheRiver 5k 22:21 Randall’s Is, NY 10/23/10; Special Challenges Leading Up to the Marathon: Forced to reprimand teen male truants in the middle of a track workout (note: did not slow down in process); Expected # of Fans To View Race 11/7/10: Not as many as Peña, but a well timed, ‘Go, Tamar!’ would be worth a lot
Edison Peña
Home Town: Copiapó, Chile; Weekly Mileage from 8/05/10 - 10/13/10: Around 30; Races Run from 8/5/10 - 10/23/10: Triatlón Piedra Roja 2:36, Chicureo, Chile ;
Special Challenges Leading Up to the Marathon: Trapped in a copper-gold mine for a record 69 days 700m beneath the ground- completed 3-6 miles of training a day in the minimal tunnels available; Expected # of Fans To View Race 11/7/10: The entire population of Chile, and likely the rest of the world
Addendum: Apparently, David Letterman has been reading my blog, and decided to book Peña.. or maybe he couldn't resist the opportunity to host a guest who has more charm in his right eyebrow than half the celebrities saturating the media today. Here is a fantastic five minutes of that show:
