A Feel Good Friday Post

Imagine this: you've trained for months for a goal race. You've put in the long runs, the speedwork, and gotten yourself in great racing shape. You've cleared your schedule at work for your trip--it's a destination goal race after all--and you think you've got a serious PR coming. Kudos to you. Too bad for you, though; the race is canceled.

I've had this happen once before, with a winter marathon, and I know just how much it totally sucks. Unfortunately, this week, a bunch of folks in Buffalo are having the same crappy experience. This week organizers of the Rapid Running Buffalo Half-Marathon, which was to held tomorrow, emailed participants to say the race was being postponed until sometime in the fall. Suddenly folks who had shelled out up to $95 for the entry, booked hotel rooms, and paid for flights were SOL. At least, that's how it seemed at first.

This week a white night stepped in, a Buffalo resident named Dan Horan organized a last minute replacement even. You read that correctly--in a matter of days, a dedicated race director created a brand new event. The new event, called the 50 Yard Finish, will include a half-marathon, 5k, and kid's mile just like the earlier event was supposed to. It will also finish on the Buffalo Bills' 50 yard line, something the Rapid Running event had promised. Even better, the 50 yard finished is USTAF-sanctioned while the Rapid Running one was not. Finally, although Horan has no affiliation with the canceled event, he's letting folks that already paid run his event for free! And for runner who weren't registered for the earlier event? The new entry fee is only $50!

I'm not making any of this up (for the full article see here). I'd like to nominate Horan for "Runners' Friend of the Year." So far as I can tell, he took a dead race and not only brought it back to life, but made it better than before. In a world where so many races are become corporate money-making machines, it's great to see someone do something so selfless for the sport. The world could sure use a few more folks like Horan.