#buffalomarathon

I normally rest the day before the marathon, and not doing something I normally do - stalk the hourly weather report for Marathon Sunday, looking for temps, humidity, wind speed/direction for 6 - 9 AM; but it turns out things turn out ok even if you don't obsess over them, the weather for tomorrow morning looks very good for a marathon...Feel like I've been there the entirety of the Buffalo Marathon's 'modern era', beginning around 2000/2001, running either the marathon or the half every year save a couple, through thick and thin. I remember one year, 2005, I was having a particularly good race, going through a side street in Kenmore, about the half-way point in those, alone, no one out cheering, a guy comes out in a bathrobe onto his front steps to grab his Sunday paper and asks me 'what's going on?' and I say, in oxygen debt, 'the Buffalo Marathon!' he turns and walks back in, not even an annoying 'you're almost there!' The year or two before, running on Delaware Ave near the 198, I'm very nearly grazed by cars passing close by me having gotten through the non-existent traffic control.  Loved those days of the Marathon, the wild wild west; and love today's Marathon, with a professional organization, media coverage, the fireworks at the Start Line, no worries of getting hit by traffic, the swag, race director Greg greeting and cheering on every body, Diane with her camera at the half way point and everywhere else, Matt cheering on Chapin Parkway, Jim between the Marina and the Waterfront, the promise of being greeted at the finish line by Sam, Greg, and Jerry, and Bart Yasso who literally seems to appear at every single marathon in the world.  It's sad to lose the event this year, and it pales to the losses many have suffered from this Pandemic, but don't sell its significance too short. It's okay to mourn this loss, when it's an event for which and in which its participants extend themselves to their furthest limits, not for money nor notoriety, but simply to be the best they can, for a moment, on a given day. Aren't many activities in existence that exalt the individual, the small group, and the community simultaneously.  Really looking forward to running the Marathon in next year's Memorial day weekend, but for tonight and tomorrow, I'm going to accept I'm bummed out about this 'loss', in solidarity with many who've suffered during this time...