Sunday, November 4, 2007
There has been a lot of press directed at problems during races this year, between the deaths at the Utica Boilermaker and the Chicago Marathon, the massive problems brought on by the combination of extreme heat and lack of preparedness at the Chicago marathon, and now the death of elite distance runner Ryan Shay during the Olympic Marathon Trials yesterday, most likely due to a heart condition.
There are lots of possible reactions to these kinds of events. I've had folks wonder aloud about the obvious dangers of distance running. Some of the noise in the press almost seems to be verging on some sort of requirement that people somehow be medically cleared to run races (though everything I've read has suggested that Shay was cleared by his doctors.) And there's always the inevitable statistics to quote, like the fact that between a half dozen and a dozen runners die every year during marathons (which I suspect means that most of us have a much better chance of surviving a marathon than we do surviving crossing the street.)
I find that several things cross my mind when I hear news like this.
One is that when my time comes, I can think of worse things than to go quickly, doing something I enjoy.
The other is expressed very well in the US Today article about Shay's death, in a quote from Sara Hall (wife to Ryan Hall, who made the US Olympic Marathon Team yesterday, and an elite runner in her own right)
"I think it shows how fragile life is. The different extremes: You're on a high one moment yet something completely opposite can be going on. It makes us realize that it may seem like the Olympic trials is the end of the world and that it's the most important thing. lt's obviously not. We have such a short time. What we do with our life, the people that we impact and the god we serve is the most important thing."
JMH
