RIF #1 Joshua Holmes

One fourth of the year gone…just like that! Time flies when you are running, don’t you think? 🙂 Our RIF Club Members have raced 442 races in the first 4 months of the year. They have done 163 marathons, 11 50 Milers, 34 50Ks, 67 Half Marathons, 60 5Ks, and handful of 100 milers, 10Ks, and other distances. We are rockin’ the running world! 64 RIF Club members have submitted points and/or monthly miles so far for 2013 (only points count in the standings so only 62 Club members are listed below).

The top 3 experienced a slight shakeup! RIF #159 Diane Bolton is in the lead with 690.3 points, followed by RIF #190 John Kent Leighton in 2^nd with 608.7 points and RIF #1 Joshua Holmes is back in the top 3 with 487.9 points in 3rd.

On the Women’s Leaderboard, Diane is in 1st, followed by RIF #217 Elaine Bickel Green in 2nd with 397.8 points and RIF #218 Carol Goslin in 3rd with 303.0 points. On the Men’s Leaderboard, John is in 1^st followed by Josh in 2^nd and RIF #259 Rob Distante in 3rd with 409.13 points.

I am always inspired to race/run more when I see how much fun our RIF Club Members are having. I have got to win the lottery… 😉

Here are the full standings:

Overall Leaderboard
1.   Diane Bolton – 690.3  (RIF #159)
2.   John Kent Leighton – 608.7  (RIF #190)
3.   Joshua Holmes – 487.9  (RIF #1)
4.   Rob Distante – 409.13  (RIF #259)
5.   Elaine Bickel Green – 397.8  (RIF #217)
6.   Hideki Kinoshita – 396.2  (RIF #88)
7.   Danny Staggs – 322.7  (RIF #186)
8.   Carol Goslin – 303  (RIF #218)
9.   Jeff Le – 293.96  (RIF #248)
10.   Kerri Haskins – 276.8  (RIF #261)

Men’s Leaderboard
1.   John Kent Leighton – 608.7  (RIF #190)
2.   Joshua Holmes – 487.9  (RIF #1)
3.   Rob Distante – 409.13  (RIF #259)
4.   Hideki Kinoshita – 396.2  (RIF #88)
5.   Danny Staggs – 322.7  (RIF #186)
6.   Jeff Le – 293.96  (RIF #248)
7.   Nicholas Norfolk – 225.8  (RIF #116)
8.   Houston Wolf – 182.2  (RIF #254)
9.   Mark Watson – 146.8  (RIF #173)
10.   Billy Cannon – 142.7  (RIF #169)
11.   Anthony Ohrey – 125.8  (RIF #27)
12.   Rodrigo Jiménez – 93.56  (RIF #203)
13.   Nathan Bass – 91.1  (RIF #174)
14.   Charles Carmen – 89.63  (RIF #255)
15.   James Krenis – 84.8  (RIF #67)
16.   Denis McCarthy – 84.8  (RIF #263)
17.   Rick Thiounn – 79.5  (RIF #111)
18.   Dennis Arriaga – 78.6  (RIF #140)
19.   Steven Reagan – 75.8  (RIF #157)
20.   Kevin Brandon – 75.1  (RIF #214)
21.   David Wingard – 65.5  (RIF #101)
22.   Robin Robbins – 58.3  (RIF #33)
23.   Neil Dryland – 57.2  (RIF #252)
24.   Jason Scott – 55.5  (RIF #265)
25.   Josh Liggett – 55.3  (RIF #147)
26.   Naresh Kumar – 50  (RIF #2)
27.   Stephen Griffin – 44.8  (RIF #48)
28.   Mark Ogletree – 44.1  (RIF #247)
29.   Kevin Ronayne – 43.6  (RIF #11)
30.   Bill Baker – 39.3  (RIF #196)
31.   Stewart Crouch – 29.3  (RIF #89)
32.   Brian Wooldridge – 26.2  (RIF #141)
33.   Chris Haynes – 26.2  (RIF #223)
34.   Nikiah Nudell – 26.2  (RIF #234)
35.   Austin Coates – 22.4  (RIF #241)

Women’s Leaderboard
1.   Diane Bolton – 690.3  (RIF #159)
2.   Elaine Bickel Green – 397.8  (RIF #217)
3.   Carol Goslin – 303  (RIF #218)
4.   Kerri Haskins – 276.8  (RIF #261)
5.   Heather Shoemaker – 261.8  (RIF #44)
6.   Sandy Staggs – 227.5  (RIF #220)
7.   Heather Zeigler – 214.4  (RIF #246)
8.   Laura Raeder – 193.4  (RIF #20)
9.   Lisa Gonzales – 177.26  (RIF #5)
10.   Alicia Eno – 146.5  (RIF #126)
11.   Robin Mancinelli – 142.3  (RIF #134)
12.   Christy Scott – 134  (RIF #231)
13.   Amanda Staggs – 121  (RIF #210)
14.   Michelle Mitchell – 112.4  (RIF #133)
15.   Melanie Kayal – 108.9  (RIF #202)
16.   Shannon Burke – 95.6  (RIF #171)
17.   Christy Bowers – 85.3  (RIF #60)
18.   Jennifer Whitley – 82  (RIF #160)
19.   Jennifer Wood – 78.6  (RIF #243)
20.   Marj Mitchell – 75.7  (RIF #4)
21.   Beth Hosick – 70  (RIF #219)
22.   Donna Pittman – 62.8  (RIF #181)
23.   Leigh Marsh – 61.7  (RIF #192)
24.   Marlene Deem – 52.4  (RIF #189)
25.   Natalie Torres – 42.4  (RIF #72)
26.   Jill Hassen – 31  (RIF #242)
27.   Martine Kincade – 26.2  (RIF #260)

We did a random drawing to pick one RIF Club member who submitted points for April and this month’s winner is RIF #243 Jenny Wood! We will be sending her a Gone For A Run sign. Don’t forget to submit your points/monthly miles next month for a chance to win!

Details on joining Run It Fast – The Club

[Extreme Racer points are rewarded per each racing mile completed. Example: marathon = 26.2 points, half marathon 13.1 points, etc.]

[photo from Lisa Gonzales]

Here is a look at where everyone is running this weekend. We had 24 responses this week. Good luck to everyone and Run It Fast!

To join Run It Fast – The Club then click HERE to read more details.

The Boston Athletic Association sent out an email this morning to runners that did not finish the 2013 Boston Marathon due to the bombings that took place near the finish line.

Here is what the info from BAA said:

“You are receiving this email because you have been identified as a 2013 Boston Marathon participant who reached at least the half-marathon mark on April 15 but who did not cross the finish line on Boylston Street.
B.A.A. Extends Special Invitation To 2013 Boston Marathon Starters Who Did Not Cross Boylston Street Finish Line.

The B.A.A. is extending an invitation to register for the 2014 Boston Marathon to official entrants in the 2013 Boston Marathon who were unable to cross the Boylston Street finish line.”

To be eligible, a 2013 Boston Marathon participant must have been an official entrant who started the race and who reached the half marathon mark in this year’s race on Monday, April 15. Registration for the 2014 Boston Marathon is scheduled to occur in September, and 2013 Boston Marathon participants who were unable to cross the finish line on Boylston Street will receive a non-transferable unique code in early August to be used for entry. An applicant’s entry will be guaranteed only during a designated registration period. Participants will be required to pay an entry fee, which has yet to be determined.

Class move from a classy organization. However, if you were hoping to qualify and gain entry for the 2014 Boston Marathon it is going to be difficult unless they plan to open up more slots.

Here is a look at where everyone is running this weekend. We had 28 responses this week. Good luck to everyone and Run It Fast!

To join Run It Fast – The Club then click HERE to read more details.

WHERE RUN IT FAST RUNNERS ARE RUNNING THIS WEEKEND (May 11-12, 2013)

Storified by Joshua Holmes· Fri, May 10 2013 23:08:45

Here is a look at where everyone is running this weekend. We had 23 responses this week. Good luck to everyone and Run It Fast!

To join Run It Fast – The Club then click HERE to read more details.

Here is a look at where everyone is running this weekend. We had 27 responses this week. Good luck to everyone and Run It Fast!

To join Run It Fast – The Club then click HERE to read more details.

WHERE RUN IT FAST RUNNERS ARE RUNNING THIS WEEKEND (APR 27-28, 2013)

Storified by Joshua Holmes· Fri, Apr 26 2013 13:33:42

RIF #259 Rob Distante

 It’s only March and RIF Club Members have already raced 102 marathons, 8 50 Milers, 30 50Ks, 45 Half Marathons, 36 5Ks, and handful of 100 milers, 10Ks, and other distances. What a year we are having! We now have 57 RIF Club members who have submitted points and/or monthly miles for 2013 (only points count in the standings so only 54 Club members are listed below)

We have a new member in the top 3! Superwoman, RIF #159 Diane Bolton, is still in the lead with 506.9 points, followed by RIF #259 Rob Distante with 409.13 in 2nd and RIF #190 John Kent Leighton rounds out the top 3 with 403.9 points in 3rd.

On the Women’s Leaderboard, Diane is in 1st, followed by RIF #44 Heather Shoemaker in 2nd with 261.8 points and RIF #218 Carol Goslin in 3rd with 195.1 points. On the Men’s Leaderboard, Rob is in 1st, followed by John in 2nd, and RIF #1 Joshua Holmes in 3rd with 355.5 points.

Besides RIF #259 Rob, RIF #88 Hideki Kinoshita (266 points) is new to the top 10 along with RIF #248 Jeff Le (197.76 points) and RIF #261 Kerri Haskins (192 points). The new members are really giving the rest of us a run for our money!

Here are the full standings:

Top Ten Overall
1.   Diane Bolton – 506.9  (RIF #159)
2.   Rob Distante – 409.13  (RIF #259)
3.   John Kent Leighton – 403.9  (RIF #190)
4.   Joshua Holmes – 355.5  (RIF #1)
5.   Hideki Kinoshita – 266  (RIF #88)
6.   Heather Shoemaker – 261.8  (RIF #44)
7.   Danny Staggs – 244.1  (RIF #186)
8.   Jeff Le – 197.76  (RIF #248)
9.   Carol Goslin – 195.1  (RIF #218)
10.   Kerri Haskins – 192  (RIF #261)

Women’s Leaderboard
1.   Diane Bolton – 506.9  (RIF #159)
2.   Heather Shoemaker – 261.8  (RIF #44)
3.   Carol Goslin – 195.1  (RIF #218)
4.   Kerri Haskins – 192  (RIF #261)
5.   Sandy Staggs – 175.1  (RIF #220)
6.   Elaine Bickel Green – 162  (RIF #217)
7.   Laura Raeder – 157.2  (RIF #20)
8.   Lisa Gonzales – 137.96  (RIF #5)
9.   Heather Zeigler – 122.7  (RIF #246)
10.   Christy Scott – 117.8  (RIF #231)
11.   Alicia Eno – 91  (RIF #126)
12.   Melanie Kayal – 89.6  (RIF #202)
13.   Jennifer Whitley – 82  (RIF #160)
14.   Amanda Staggs – 68.6  (RIF #210)
15.   Jennifer Wood – 65.5  (RIF #243)
16.   Leigh Marsh – 61.7  (RIF #192)
17.   Marj Mitchell – 52.4  (RIF #4)
18.   Marlene Deem – 52.4  (RIF #189)
19.   Beth Hosick – 43.6  (RIF #219)
20.   Christy Bowers – 41.7  (RIF #60)
21.   Jill Hassen – 31  (RIF #242)
22.   Donna Pittman – 23.5  (RIF #181)
23.   Natalie Torres – 19.3  (RIF #72)

Men’s Leaderboard
1.   Rob Distante – 409.13  (RIF #259)
2.   John Kent Leighton – 403.9  (RIF #190)
3.   Joshua Holmes – 355.5  (RIF #1)
4.   Hideki Kinoshita – 266  (RIF #88)
5.   Danny Staggs – 244.1  (RIF #186)
6.   Jeff Le – 197.76  (RIF #248)
7.   Nicholas Norfolk – 156.2  (RIF #116)
8.   Billy Cannon – 120.3  (RIF #169)
9.   Mark Watson – 117.5  (RIF #173)
10.   Anthony Ohrey – 99.6  (RIF #27)
11.   Charles Carmen – 89.63  (RIF #255)
12.   Nathan Bass – 88  (RIF #174)
13.   Rick Thiounn – 79.5  (RIF #111)
14.   Kevin Brandon – 75.1  (RIF #214)
15.   David Wingard – 65.5  (RIF #101)
16.   Neil Dryland – 57.2  (RIF #252)
17.   Josh Liggett – 55.3  (RIF #147)
18.   Steven Reagan – 53.4  (RIF #157)
19.   James Krenis – 52.4  (RIF #67)
20.   Rodrigo Jiménez – 51.31  (RIF #203)
21.   Naresh Kumar – 50  (RIF #2)
22.   Robin Robbins – 45.2  (RIF #33)
23.   Dennis Arriaga – 39.3  (RIF #140)
24.   Bill Baker – 39.3  (RIF #196)
25.   Kevin Ronayne – 37.4  (RIF #11)
26.   Stewart Crouch – 29.3  (RIF #89)
27.   Chris Haynes – 26.2  (RIF #223)
28.   Nikiah Nudell – 26.2  (RIF #234)
29.   Stephen Griffin – 22.4  (RIF #48)
30.   Austin Coates – 22.4  (RIF #241)
31.   Brian Wooldridge – 13.1  (RIF #141)

We did a random drawing to pick one RIF Club member who submitted points in April and this month’s winner is RIF #157 Steven Reagan! We’ll be sending him a Gone For A Run sign. Don’t forget to submit your points/monthly miles next month for a chance to win!

Details on joining Run It Fast – The Club

[Extreme Racer points are rewarded per each racing mile completed. Example: marathon = 26.2 points, half marathon 13.1 points, etc.]

[photo from Rob Distante]

Here is a look at where everyone is running this weekend. We had 26 responses this week. Good luck to everyone and Run It Fast!

To join Run It Fast – The Club then click HERE to read more details.

WHERE RUN IT FAST RUNNERS ARE RUNNING THIS WEEKEND (APR 20-21, 2013

Storified by Joshua Holmes· Fri, Apr 19 2013 11:57:24

UPDATE 2: Suspect #1 (dark hat from FBI photos) has reportedly died at the hospital whil suspect #2 (white hat) is still on the run and is dangerous after shootings and explosions at MIT according to Fox News. A campus police officer died in the shootings. More info HERE!

UPDATE: The two suspects are believed to be Sunil Tripathi and Mike Mulugeta. One is reported to be in custody and one of the run after shootings and explosions at and around the MIT campus and in Watertown, MA. The FBI officially is not confirming the connection of the MIT shooting to the Boston Marathon bombings.

Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Boston Field Office Richard DesLauriers, United States Attorney Carmen Ortiz, and FBI JTTF law enforcement partners held a press briefing today, April 18, regarding the Boston Marathon investigation.

The FBI released several photos of two men suspected to having planted the two bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.

The photo below has also been passed around showing fraternity boy #1 leaving the scene of the bombing, after it exploded, without his backback on.

If you have visual images, video, and/or details regarding the explosions along the Boston Marathon route and elsewhere, submit them on https://bostonmarathontips.fbi.gov/. No piece of information or detail is too small.

You can also call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), prompt #3, with information.

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!