{"id":261,"date":"2013-04-18T03:21:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T03:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=261"},"modified":"2013-07-18T19:55:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T19:55:35","slug":"camaraderie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=261","title":{"rendered":"Camaraderie"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you are probably all well aware, especially if you follow RRG on a regular basis, tomorrow morning I will leave for the Smoky Mountain Relay.\u00a0 I should probably start packing, but instead, here I sit with my coffee and my laptop.\u00a0 Alas, I am a procrastinator.\u00a0 At 10 am tomorrow, I will join with 4 of my teammates at the Starbucks in Chesterfield valley, to embark on our epic road trip from St. Louis through Paducah and on to the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.\u00a0 Feel free to swing by Starbucks as we depart to offer words of encouragement\u2026or to send us off with coffee.\u00a0 Either way is fine really.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of what happened on Monday in Boston, I can think of nothing I would rather do this weekend, than join with this ahhhh-mazing group of people to run an awesome race.\u00a0 The camaraderie of a relay is really like no other running event I know.\u00a0 It\u2019s odd to think that running a race where you might not see another living soul while you\u2019re out there getting through your assigned leg would provide camaraderie, but I assure you, it does.\u00a0 You might spend many hours sleeping during your \u201crace\u201d, but still, you feel the camaraderie.\u00a0 Chances are, by the end of the race, no one will want to be within 25 feet of you, but it\u2019s really nothing personal, you just stink.<\/p>\n

In all seriousness, this weekend is going to be intense.\u00a0 The raw emotion that was evoked from the devastation in Boston, also brings out the best in humanity, and that is what truly bonds us together.\u00a0 That is camaraderie.<\/p>\n

Let me tell you a few stories about last year\u2019s race.\u00a0 In the middle of the night, in a dark church parking lot, Nathan made me luke warm ramen noodles to get me ready for an upcoming leg.\u00a0 As I ran up a mountain on said leg, my team stopped and waited for me to cheer me on and give me Gatorade as I trekked upward in the pitch dark.\u00a0 When I was literally lost in the woods on my last leg, Ken came into the woods to find me and at one point was actually pushing me up the hill when I thought I couldn\u2019t do it anymore.\u00a0 But, camaraderie is not just about noodles and Gatorade.\u00a0 And sometimes with camaraderie, you don\u2019t have anyone right there next to you, you just have to trust that they are supporting you from afar.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure everyone on the course in Boston felt the camaraderie of their fellow runners right up until the blasts put a stop to Monday\u2019s celebration.\u00a0 But what the blaster didn\u2019t anticipate is that those explosions, rather that halting camaraderie, ignited that part of the human spirit that takes camaraderie to a whole new level.\u00a0 The way people ran in to help the injured.\u00a0 The stories of Boston residents coming out of their homes to provide for the basic needs of stranded runners. Strangers sharing cell phones to try and locate loved ones.\u00a0 I even read a story of a man who put his medal around the neck of a runner who was stopped just short of the finish because, honestly, we all know that every person who ran even a portion of the Boston Marathon on 4\/15 was a finisher in the eyes of the running community.<\/p>\n

None of my Smokin Aces teammates were in Boston, but we all knew people who were there in some capacity and you can be very sure we are planning to let everyone in the NC mountains know that we are running this weekend to honor Boston, just as I am sure most of the other teams will be doing as well. \u00a0It may not be much, but it\u2019s what we can do.\u00a0 Armbands, graffiti on the van, a moment of silence at the start. \u00a0Anything little thing to remind the rest of the world about what camaraderie looks like, just helps to unite us all against the horrible, hateful crimes that keep occurring way too frequently.<\/p>\n

This Friday and Saturday we will be running to stand together as a united front against fear and violence.\u00a0 We will be running to honor those who have fallen, those who lived through a nightmare, and those who ran to help.\u00a0 We will be running to ensure that cowards who try to tear down the human spirit will not win.\u00a0 We will be running because we are grateful that we can.\u00a0 We will be running to remember what camaraderie looks like.\u00a0 But mostly, we will be running just to remember.<\/p>\n

This is Rambling Runner Girl, signing off, until we meet again on the other side of the Smokies\u2026<\/p>\n

\"For<\/a>

For Boston…<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you are probably all well aware, especially if you follow RRG on a regular basis, tomorrow morning I will leave for the Smoky Mountain Relay.\u00a0 I should probably start packing, but instead, here I sit with my coffee and my laptop.\u00a0 Alas, I am a procrastinator.\u00a0 At 10 am tomorrow, I will join with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-lessonsfromrunning","category-randomthoughts","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eO4v-4d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}