Honoring September 11th

Admin note: I’m switching the order of scheduled posts for the next few days; I had hoped to have a report of my family’s Big Sur hike in this spot today, but another topic was just weighing on my mind more and more, and eventually pushed everything else to the side. This is a somewhat somber post before what promises to be a very somber weekend nationwide – so bear with me for a few days and we’ll hit the ground running (barefoot running, in fact) again next week.

**

At the moment the world changed, I was outside running.

It was a Tuesday morning like countless Tuesday mornings before it, as our training group met at 5:25AM to do our routine 13-mile loop. The run itself wasn’t that remarkable; I honestly don’t remember how long it took me or how I felt. I could probably look it up in my training log, but I don’t really care to know.

The memorable part was afterward, while walking towards the cars, where we were met by the fastest runner in our group, who had finished a few minutes ahead of us and had already flipped on his car radio.

Two airplanes just crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, he told us. I remember thinking that it was the setup line to some twisted joke – but the more he described the news report, the more the stark reality sank in. We began our run in one world, and finished in one that was irrevocably different.

As far as the aftermath of September 11th goes, I’m one of the fortunate ones. I didn’t lose any loved ones in the attacks, my hometown didn’t become an environmental wasteland, and I wasn’t required to put my life on the line in the call to protect and defend our nation. Rather, like millions of others, I just began to consider the world in an entirely different manner.

Whenever I see an airplane now, I wonder if it’s flying lower than it should be. When I’m in the stadium at a Giants game in San Francisco, or crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, I recognize that they’re not only attractions and landmarks, but potential terrorist targets as well. Irrational fears are never completely settled anymore; sometimes I wonder if the iconic bridge will still be standing when my grandkids are around.

In the eternal contest between the forces of good and the interests of evil, there’s no question that evil scored a lot of points that day. I still have faith that goodness is in the lead, and certainty that it will ultimately prevail. (To borrow a popular Christian expression, I know how the story ends, because I’ve read the back of the Book.) But just like in any sport, once those points are on the scoreboard, they can’t be taken down – and I guess I’d feel a whole lot better about things if we could be throwing a shutout, or even if we had a slightly more comfortable lead.

Ten years later, I still live a charmed life; I have more blessings than I can possibly count, and probably more than I could even imagine. Above all else, I’m fully aware that life is as fragile as it is beautiful – which is all the more reason to appreciate those things we have and the people we have to share them with. And that’s probably why I’ll start this September 11th the same way I did a decade ago, running outside through my tranquil neighborhood trails – a place and an activity for which I’ve become more and more grateful with each passing year.

It’s not the same world it used to be, but it’s still a pretty darn good one – and hopefully I can always do my part to keep it that way.

**

My friend Mike was with me on that run on September 11th, 2011 – a day that was already an occasion of mourning for him even before it was synonymous with national tragedy. He explains why in the Monterey Herald column that follows below.

There was one notable departure from our writing routine for this article: when he sent the first draft to me for editing, I sent it back without revising a single thing. This is your story, I wrote back, and it’s very meaningful. I’m not going to change a word of it. Without question, that was the right call.


The Running Life 09/08/11                    “Honoring September 11th”

“I ran. I’ll never forget the sound of the building crumbling behind me. I didn’t turn around. I just ran and ran and ran.”
- One survivor of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mike gets personal about September 11th.

Screaming and running have always been our primal human fear defense mechanisms. Running away is the natural thing to do.

At some point in every race and often in daily runs every runner is faced with a moment of decision; do I keep on running hard and be physically uncomfortable or do I back off and take it easy? It is at these moments that each runner looks within and often discovers who they are or who they can be.

It’s at that moment and by that decision that the runner feels most alive.

In three days I honor the 17th anniversary of September 11th. No, that’s NOT a typo. Actually the story starts on Friday October 15th, 1993. My first wife Sue was running at the Hartnell College track in Salinas and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage due to an aneurysm. No warning signs, no behavioral changes, no headaches in the previous months. She required immediate surgery and an MRI indicated she had Glioblastoma Multiforme 4, a diagnosis you never want to hear, advanced brain cancer.

She was 46 and outwardly extremely healthy; maintained a healthy weight, a runner, a swimmer, never smoked, only drank alcohol occasionally and it was red wine. She ate all the recommended foods, with a lot of fruits and vegetables; never used extra salt, didn’t have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, always ordered dressing “on the side”. She maintained a fairly easy-going personality and we had three relatively stressless and wonderful children.

All of us runners and health addicts who think we are “bulletproof” should think again. Lifestyle choices are only one part of the puzzle. After the surgery, the doctor said the prognosis was less than a year and she passed away 11 months later on September 11th, 1994; a precious and vibrant life gone at a far too early age.

She and our family struggled during that 11 months, but my running thrived (as meaningless as it seemed), as I used it and my running partners for stress relief, strength, and comfort. I ran and ran and ran.

September 11th was our unique family day for memories for seven years until 2001. It still is, but we now share it with the entire country. Somehow it only feels right that September 11th should be a national day of honor and reflection.

We had 11 months to confront and face death and talk about it and the consequences. I can only imagine and pretend to feel the pain of those whose loved ones left for work on a “normal” day, or to take a plane on a “routine” business trip, and they never saw them again. No time to even think of goodbyes. Nearly 3,000 people died; 411 were firefighters, police, and paramedics who ran into the World Trade Center buildings and overcame their fear.

On September 11th, instead of re-creating pictures in our mind of the horrors of tumbling and broken buildings, and airplanes falling from the sky, we should think compassionately of those precious and vibrant victims that died and their grieving family members. Make it personal.

Before you go for a run on September 11th, and every day after, make sure you are running toward something and not away from it. And hug your family before you go.




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