Some said there were a thousand runners, others said it was closer to 1,500. What was certain, though, was that there were many hundreds on the streets of Tallahassee's Southwood community. There were more athletes than those streets would ever see outside of Thanksgiving Day and the annual Tallahassee Turkey Trot. They were there on Sunday afternoon, 21 April 2013, to show their solidarity with the victims of the Boston bombings of April 15, the runners of the Boston Marathon, the people of Boston, and the citizens of the United States. They were there to run 5.2 miles.
It was an odd distance. When the bombs went off in Boston, Massachusetts near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Boylston Street, the area became a crime scene. Additionally, no one knew that there weren't more bombs in the area. So even though there were still runners on the course, the finish line was shut down. No one was allowed to enter the area. More than 17,000 runners had finished the 117th annual race, but over 5,000 were stopped short of the finish line. Many were halted at the 21-mile mark--5.2 miles from their goal.
Back in Tallahassee on the evening following the marathon, Shannon Colavecchio of Badass Fitness thought that one way that local athletes could express their feelings about the bombings was to do a 5.2-mile run--the distance from the finish line that so many marathoners had been forced to end their run. Without much experience in producing a running event, Colavecchio and her friends decided to go ahead with the idea. No more than a few dozen friends and acquaintances were going to show up, right? They picked a course, decided that the run would be at 5:00 PM on Sunday, and posted the event on Facebook. 5.2 miles at 5:00 PM; 5.2 at 5 for Boston.
Almost immediately, hundreds of people RSVPed their event on Facebook. To put that in frightening perspective, fewer than 500 sent RSVPed the aforementioned Turkey Trot on Facebook in 2012, an event that was attended by 6,000 participants.Clearly people liked the idea. Just as clearly, the run was going to be too big for the parking and streets around Badass Fitness.
The run was moved to Southwood. The local running community including some members of Gulf Winds Track Club rallied around Badass Fitness's leadership, and somehow the event happened. Not quite six days after Colavecchio came up with the idea, over a thousand were gathering on Esplanade Way to run 5.2 at 5 for Boston.
The top runners were handed awards, but racing wasn't the focus of the afternoon. If it had been, I would have written something like this:
Albert Reed took the lead at the two-mile mark and never relinquished it, going on to win the 5.2-mile Run for Boston in 31:56. Florida State University women's track coach Karen Harvey was the first female finisher, placing fourth overall in 32:27.
There were certainly folks running fast at Southwood, and there were people out there who were racing. That wasn't important, though. Sure, Karen Harvey was the first woman finisher. But it was more telling that she was out at Southwood only minutes after getting off a flight at Tallahassee Regional Airport. Everyone at Southwood was out there because they needed to express how they felt about Boston. Back in New England, Neil Diamond and James Taylor had the same need. They're singers, so they sang. The people at Southwood were runners, so they ran.After a little over an hour the runners cleared the streets of Southwood. The event raised around $15,000 for the Boston Red Cross and One Fund Boston.
Links
- More photos of 5.2 at 5 for Boston
- Part 1:https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10102993164111973.1073741847.5215641&l=564297db6e
- Part 2:https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10102994050420803.1073741848.5215641&l=d17675ef3d
- Shannon Colavecchio, "To Boston, from Tallahassee, With Love"
http://www.badassfitness.com/2013/04/to-boston-from-tallahassee-with-love/
- The One Fund Boston
https://secure.onefundboston.org/
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