Running for Meg

Today, a women that I have never met and will never have the pleasure to meet got me out the door.  A woman who lived over a hundred miles away from me motivated me to suck it up and run.

You see, last Monday, after putting her babies on the school bus, Meg Menzies was hit by a drunk driver while she was on her morning run.  She did everything right.  She was wearing bright clothes.  She was aware of her surroundings.  She was running on a running path....a running path.  She never saw him coming.

Her death sparked a running movement across the country.  Meg was associated with the Moms Run This Town, which is my running group.  She may have been a third cousin once removed, but that's close enough.  She may have run the some of the same races I have....that means we ran together.

I tried every excuse I could think of to delay my long run.  I had a morning choir rehearsal.  I had a headache.  (Really, I had a POUNDING headache...I wanted to sit in the dark with my eyes closed.)  I had somewhere to be later....the list goes on and on.  Every excuse brought me back to Meg.  Saturday was Meg's Miles day.  The running community was honoring a fellow runner and bringing awareness to running safety (and driving awareness) on Saturday.

So, I got dressed.  I dropped the little man off with my parents, because hubby and the big boys were doing Boy Scout things, and I ran for Meg.  She could have been me or any one of my running friends.  She was a wife and a mother....and a friend and a daughter.  She was a runner.  She was training for Boston.  (Okay...that's where the similarities stop.)  She couldn't run, so I ran for her.  We all ran for her....because she would have run for us.

6 miles done...for Meg.