Posted on 18 April 2013.
This is the medal for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Edinburgh Half Marathon that took place on April 14, 2013 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Love the shape and the design of this medal.
MORE PHOTOS OF MARATHON/ULTRA MEDALS AND BUCKLES
[Medal submitted by Natalie Sanchez. Follow her on on Twitter @MissMedalAddict]
Posted in Bling, Featured, Half Marathon, International, Medals0 Comments
Posted on 18 April 2013.
This is the medal the finishers of the Hoof It For Heifer 20K received on April 13, 2013 in Morrilton, Arkansas.
MORE PHOTOS OF MARATHON/ULTRA MEDALS AND BUCKLES
[medal submitted by RIF #116 Nicholas Norfolk. Follow him on Twitter @absolut_zer0]
Posted in Bling, Featured, Medals, Trails0 Comments
Posted on 18 April 2013.
This is the fun finisher’s medal for the Hogeye Marathon that took place on April 14, 2013 in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
MORE PHOTOS OF MARATHON/ULTRA MEDALS AND BUCKLES
[medal submitted by RIF #116 Nicholas Norfolk. Follow him on Twitter @absolut_zer0]
Posted in Bling, Featured, Marathon, Medals0 Comments
Posted on 16 April 2013.
We have no answers from the senseless Boston Marathon bombings that took place yesterday. When we finally have answers they won’t make sense. They will just point a finger at some radical lunatic that decided to kill innocent people to make some sort of deranged point.
I covered yesterday’s Boston Marathon for 16 hours straight. Running is one of my passions and it’s part of what I do for a living. I had just finished most of the race coverage for Run It Fast when the bombs went off at the finish line in Boston.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard reports of ‘bombs’ at a sporting event. Usually those reports are erroneous or false. So naturally at first I thought maybe a car backfired or some fireworks went off that wrongly set off the social media first responders with incorrect tweets and status updates.
However, the videos from the attack quickly reached the internet, TV, and we all realized that something very serious had just happened. I created Run It Fast – The Club fourteen months ago and had been tracking all of our runners that were running the Boston Marathon. About half of our runners had crossed the finish line at that point, but the rest of them were on target to finish just about when the bombs went off.
That’s when it all started to hit home. The runners became real to us and you feel connected to the terror that unfolded collectively. The tragedy that happened yesterday, that happens 20x a day in Iraq and other countries, becomes surreal and a terror to you and those that have loved ones that were present. You may have begun thinking about your family, when you would have been finishing the race- if you had been there running it, and where your family would have been, waiting on you to watch you finish your first Boston Marathon.
Likely my family would have been near the finish where the bombs went off, and I would have been finishing within minutes of detonation. Maybe I would have been over there on the sidewalk reconnecting with my family and waiting for fellow Run It Fast members to finish. What if? What if? What if?
Then at some point you start to think of the tragedy of the entire thing. Those poor people that were wounded or killed were just the victims of a random act of violence. But really it wasn’t random to them. Random acts of violence are never random. They are deliberate and the victims are almost always selected beforehand even if their names aren’t known. Someone intentionally set out to kill, injure, and maim dozens of people at the finish line in Boston.
Violence is an epidemic. It is in certain parts of the world. We can claim to be the land of the free in America but we live in a dangerous society. Some of us are privileged to live away from where most violence takes place, but our lives interweave us all, of every background and origin, into each other’s lives as our stories unfold.
I was jumped after a high school football game, at the inner city high school I attended, when I was a 14-year old freshman. That same year I was an innocent bystander in a race-riot at my high school. SWAT teams, police, dogs covered campus as most of us were simply trying to learn American history when in fact we were being caught in the middle of it at that very moment. When I was 19, I was robbed at gunpoint in my apartment with a gun to my head. Six years after that I awoke in my apartment in Athens to the Greek mafia staring down at me. What went down in that apartment in those early hours have never fully been discussed outside of myself and my roommate during that intense early morning wake up. For now let’s just say that what Hollywood puts in most action/suspense movies is more believable.
Each incident was worse than the prior one. I always thought that my odds of being the victim of ‘random acts of violence’ had to finally be down to like infinity to one since I’d already been randomly selected multiple times. But I’m just as likely tomorrow to be the victim of some senseless tragedy as you are.
Most would consider that to be very bad luck. It was traumatic in part, but I was actually lucky. Besides a busted lip from getting jumped I was uninjured physically. However, those events always stick with you. They hide for the most part, and you might think it never happened, but then something ‘random’ like yesterday happens and it all flashes forward to reality again and you start to think once again of ‘What if?’ You feel the pain more than most and your heart bleeds and your heart cries for those that lost a loved one or were injured.
The victims from yesterday will be told by many that they are lucky to have survived. They won’t always agree with that assessment. They will have wounds that will never heal. They will have nightmares that will never resolve. They’ll see a neighbor jogging down the street and be struck with tremors from what happened in Boston on April 15th.
But from the concrete absoluteness of obscurity comes small blades of hope and brightness as time passes and wounds heal.
When evil strikes it makes a massive splash that dashes the hopes from humanity, at least for a small microcosm. Then great starts to surface because simple goodness wouldn’t be good enough to whitewash the atrocities of what that evil has done.
For good is better than evil and great trumps evil. Greatness is dormant in most of us and often needs a powder-keg, sadly perhaps literally, to set it off. But once ignited you start to see the best of humanity. Hope starts to rebrand itself in society when this happens.
When the bombs went off yesterday, we saw runners and first responders run towards the smoke and explosions to help and hopefully save our fallen brothers and sisters.
As Andy Durfresne said in The Shawshank Redemption, “Hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
Runners are tough people…some of the toughest people on the planet. Often what others might confuse for a white flag is a dirtied handkerchief that we take out of our pocket to tie around our bloodied leg so we can get up and keep marching forward.
A lot of humans that run do so because they’ve already dealt with something traumatic or overcome some bad injustice, act of violence, rape, death, cancer, depression, or life-altering event.
For when we run hard and run far everything leaves our systems as we become squarely focused on the most basic things like breathing, survival, where our next step will land. It detoxes us and removes all the toxins from badness, heartache, confusion, and what troubles us in our daily lives.
But even the best of us can’t run forever and when we stop or the race is over we have to figure out how to survive and how to respond when evil strikes and fear starts to consume our lungs that were just filled with oxygen and endorphins that made us think that we could do anything.
And life is perhaps best summed up with just that. Where will our next step land when the race is over?
The events of yesterday and humanity’s track record would strongly suggest that step is towards the smoke and flames and out of the ashes, humanity will win the Boston Marathon!
Posted on 16 April 2013.
The cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated is powerful with the famed photo of marathoner Bill Iffrig collapsed on the ground, after the bomb had exploded, with Boston Police officers surrounding him.
As we reported last night, Bill was uninjured and actually got up off the asphalt and walked the remaining 20-feet to the finish line (read more about Bill Iffrig HERE). Bill’s a tough 78-year old grizzled runner.
Two things: 1. Bill never would have believed yesterday morning that he’d be on the cover of Sports Illustrated today and 2. There is no way in hell he would have ever believed the reason for him being on the cover.
The photo is powerful, iconic, and will be the lasting image from a horrible day in marathon and U.S. history.
More Posts from the 117th Boston Marathon
Posted in Marathon, Running0 Comments
Posted on 16 April 2013.
Three people to date have died from the tragic Boston Marathon bombings. One of them was a 8-year old boy named Martin Richard (photographed above).
Martin was at the Boston Marathon with his mom, Denise, and sister to watch his father, William, finish the famed marathon. Both of them are in serious condition. His mom underwent brain surgery last night at the hospital. Martin’s sister, who is 6-years old, lost a leg in the explosion.
The family is from Dorchester, Massachusetts. WHDH also reports that Martin has a brother in the 5th grade as well. It is believed that he wasn’t at the race.
The photo above of Martin is chilling!
Our deepest and sincere thoughts and prayers go out to the Richard family.
[photo Facebook via Gawker]
Posted in Marathon, Running0 Comments
Posted on 15 April 2013.
That man who crumbled to the ground during the Boston Marathon bombings is Bill Iffrig and…..
…..he’s ok.
He got up off the ground, dusted himself off, and walked the remaining 20 feet to the finish line to finish the marathon in 4:03:47.
Yeah that’s an average time for the Boston Marathon except…..
…..Bill’s 78-years old or young and his time was the second best in his age division.
A race official came to check on him and helped him up.
Then, accompanied by the official, Iffrig walked the last 12 feet or so across the finish line.
“I ended up second in my division,” he said. “After you’ve run 26 miles you’re not going to stop there.” His timing chip marked his finish at 4 hours, 3 minutes, 47 seconds.
However, Bill was rattled as we all would have been in that situation:
“It was a close one though, boy. I’ll tell you, that scared me.”
Bill started running in the 70’s and hasn’t slowed down. In fact he’s very fast for his age. He know’s that he is not only fast but has outlived much of his competition as well.
“Not many old guys are as fast as me.”
He reminds me of my good friend, Dallas Smith, who is 72-years old and finished 4th in his age division on this tragic day.
It’s been a day full of bad news, stories, Tweets, and updates so it’s good to read something positive today.
I’m happy that Bill is ok. I’m even happy he got off the asphalt and walked the remaining 20 feet to the finish line.
He’s tough like everyone who ran Boston today and like all of the first responders and volunteers who did an amazing job under a lot of pressure.
Bill is lucky. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those that have been wounded and to the families of those that lost someone.
You can view a GIF of the explosion that knocked Bill down at the bottom of the page by clicking HERE. (I didn’t want to repost the video or GIF again on another page. I think we’ve all been traumatized enough by it today.)
UPDATE: The photo above of Bill is now on the cover of Sports Illustrated for this week. View the SI cover HERE.
More Stories from our Boston Marathon Coverage Today
[photo: Boston Globe]
Posted in Marathon, Running0 Comments
Posted on 15 April 2013.
Statement from the Boston Athletic Association Monday, April 15, 2013 8:00 p.m. ET
The Boston Athletic Association extends its deepest sympathies to all those who were affected in any way by todays events.
Today is a sad day for the City of Boston, for the running community, and for all those who were here to enjoy the 117th running of the Boston Marathon. What was intended to be a day of joy and celebration quickly became a day in which running a marathon was of little importance.
We can confirm that all of the remaining runners who were out on the course when the tragic events unfolded have been returned to a community meeting area.
At this time, runners bags in Boston which remain unclaimed may be picked up by runners presenting their bib number or proof of race participation at the Castle, at 101 Arlington Street, in Boston.
At this time, we are cooperating with the City of Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and all federal law enforcement officials.
We would like to thank the countless people from around the world who have reached out to support us today.
This was originally posted on the BAA’s Facebook page and you can view it HERE.
More Stories Related to the Boston Marathon Bombings:
Posted in Marathon, Running0 Comments
Posted on 15 April 2013.
Here is a look at the front page of newspapers from around the world in wake of the bombings that took place at the 117th Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.
You can track all of our coverage of this horrific day at this link: Bombs Explode at Boston Marathon Finish: Race Stopped (Photos)
#BostonMarathon #PrayforBoston
More Stories Related to the Boston Marathon Bombings:
[h/t to @jonathanwald]
Posted in Marathon, Running0 Comments
Posted on 15 April 2013.
[Check back for updates!]
Out of the Ashes, Humanity Will Win the Boston Marathon by Joshua Holmes.
UPDATE 39: FBI Releases Photos of Two Boston Marathon Bombing Suspects
UPDATE 38: Boston Police are saying NO ARREST has in fact been made per Breaking News on Twitter.
UPDATE 37: Fox News is reporting that the Boston police have arrested the suspect they believe did the Boston Marathon bombings. CNN and AP were also reporting the same thing. Other networks are saying that an arrest HAS NOT been made.
UPDATE 36: The name of the second victim killed in the blasts is Krystle Campbell from Arlington, Massachusetts according to CNN.
UPDATE 35: Investigators found circuit board believed used to trigger marathon bombs per Boston Globe.
UPDATE 34: Chilling Sports Illustrated Cover from the Boston Marathon is of Bill Iffrig After He Fell (VIEW)
UPDATE 33: Photo of 8-year old Martin Richard who was killed in the Boston Marathon bombings. Pray for his family! His sister lost a leg as well and his mom has a brain injury.
UPDATE 32: Ed Davis: “176 is the best number I have right now, 17 of them are critical, 3 have died.” [via Huff Po]
UPDATE 31: U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel calls bombings ‘cruel act of terror’ per AP.
UPDATE 30: President Obama: Not known whether Boston bombings an act of an organization or an individual [CNN]
Pope Francis offers prayers for all Bostonians (story).
UPDATE 29: The Boston Celtics game against the Indiana Pacers for Tuesday night has been cancelled (NOT POSTPONED) and will not be made up per ESPN.
UPDATE 28: Three deaths are too many but the good news is that number has not risen in the past few hours.
UPDATE 27: Keep passing this story around on Facebook and Twitter: FULL STORY It’s a good story from a very bad day in Boston. Keep sending good thoughts and prayers to those impacted directly by today.
Several reports of this or that regarding the investigation into the bombing suspects floating around at the moment. Nothing that I think is link worthy at the moment.
UPDATE 26: Report (updated): 23,326 started, 17,584 finished, 4,496 made it to 40k but never crossed the finish line, and 1,246 never made it to 40k. (via @flotrack)
UPDATE 25: The man who went crumbled to the ground in the bombing video? His name is Bill Iffrig and he’s ok. He’s 78-years young. He dusted himself off and finished the remaining 20 feet to the finish line where he placed second place in his age division. (FULL STORY)
UPDATE 24: Boston Athletic Association Releases Statement
UPDATE 23: Doctors are “pulling ball-bearings out of people’ in the ER, suggesting #bombs were designed to propel shrapnel.
UPDATE 22: Reports that more undetonated devices are being found in packages near marathon route. Officials are going to scour the entire 26.2 mile route with bomb sniffing dogs to try to find any bombs and info.
UPDATE 20: Last runners to cross the line before the explosion crossed at 2:57pm ET per Fox News.
UPDATE 19: Reports continue to surface of a person of interest being held at hospital. 2 dead, over 110 injured. Many have lost arms and legs.
UPDATE 18: One of the two killed was 8-years old according to Wolf Blitzer of CNN.
UPDATE 16: President Obama, “Michelle and I send our deepest prayers and thoughts….”
“We still don’t know who did this or why…but make no mistake we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“We will find out who did this and we’ll hold them accountable.”
It was a very quick, 3-minute, but firm statement by President Obama to find out who did it and hold them responsible.
UPDATE 15: Boston Police confirm they have no suspects in custody.
UPDATE 14: President Barack Obama will speak to the nation about the Boston Marathon bombings at 6:10pm ET.
UPDATE 13: BAA: 4,496 runners crossed the 40K mark and did not reach finish line. 1,246 runners were diverted/stopped before 40K. [H/T Runner’s World]
UPDATE 12: Photo via @CarissaAnneB
UPDATE 11: Via ESPN’s Darren Rovell: The avg Boston finish time (when the most people are crossing) was 4:18 last year. Explosion went off at 4:09:40. Most people in area.
UPDATE 9: THE WORST VIDEO WE’VE SEEN FROM THE BOMBING (watch with caution, no kids). Pray for all!!!
UPDATE 8: Third explosion at the JFK Library just confirmed by Boston Police during their press conference.
UPDATE 7: There are many updates I could post from what I’m hearing from the local hospitals. You can easily read them on Twitter and one in particular from Darren Rovell. I’ll just say there is no good news coming from the hospitals in Boston. Many victims including both runners and spectators. Hopefully most will survive and live but their lives won’t ever be the same.
UPDATE 6: The Boston Globe is reporting 2 dead with up to 64 wounded.
UPDATE 5: NY Post reporting, “Authorities have a identified a suspect, who is currently being guarded in a Boston hospital with shrapnel wounds.”
UPDATE 4: Reports are claiming that a 3rd explosive device was found…undetonated.
UPDATE 3: Boston police confirming 2 are dead and at least 22 are wounded.
UPDATE 2: The 26th mile of the Boston Marathon this year was dedicated to the victims of the Newtown Shooting.
UPDATE: One news outlet is reporting three people dead. Let’s hope that is an erroneous report.
Two bomb explosions have gone off at the finish area of the 117th Boston Marathon injuring dozens of runners.
The race has been STOPPED. The race had just gone over the four hour mark.
CNN is reporting that at least six have been injured. Explosions possibly came from garbage cans.
And here is video from CNN of when the actual explosion took place:
#Pray4Boston
Explosion on Vine (Again view with caution. It’s on a loop here but shows you that this was no accident. CLICK to view the loop)
Posted in Marathon, Running0 Comments
© 2024 Run It Fast®. Powered by Wordpress.
