She was a runner!

I had a moment today to play on the internet. I have been so busy with a training project for work that my surf time has gone way down. We are talking, none, in the 8 hours that I am chained to my desk. This is a stark change to the weeks prior to the start of the project. So today I took some time to just goof off. I am an avid participant of the Runner’s World forums. I mostly lurk, but I am there. When I say avid, what I mean is I can spent the whole 8 hours there, as you can guess my job is not that demanding of my time. But that is not the story that I am going to tell today. That is a long boring story for some other time.

No, the story I am going to tell today is one about how the people we “meet” in cyberspace can have an effect on out lives. In my meandering about the forums today I found a post about running in honor of a deceased forumite (someone who hangs out in the forums). I clicked on the link half expecting to find out that one of the people who frequent the boards that have been in failing health had passed, this would be sad but not unexpected. But, what I found was that a 22-year old teaching student had been killed while out jogging. She was out for a 3 mile run, what could have been her last in perpetration her marathon this Sunday. A marathon that now she will never run. Her Aunt was going to run the ½, she is still planning on doing that. The last that I read Elizabeth’s boyfriend was going to run in her honor. They are planning a moment of silence at the start of the race. This was all at the hands of the people she talked to in the forums some of whom knew her only as esdinunzio.

I have spent time lurking in the forum where she spent most of her time so I had seen her posts. I have not talked to or even shared a thread with her that I know of. But for some reason this news leaves me with a heavy heart and an overwhelming sadness of such a young life ended in such a tragic way. A lot of people will say that if they have to “go out” suddenly, then they want to “go out” doing what they loved. From all the kind words that have been shared on the forums she was doing just that. It makes one stop and think. I am not really sure what I am thinking… how short life is… how we should live everyday to the fullest… that we should find something we love to do and do that… maybe, just maybe it is how sad that some of the new reports on the story call her a “jogger”, not a runner and put the blame for the accident on her, she was following the run facing traffic rule. Some time accidents just happen with tragic and life changing results.

I said this story was going to be about the people that we “meet” in cyberspace. I have had the opportunity to “meet” some world class people in my time at the Running Forums. Most of them, I may never meet in person to share a meal or a run with, but they are important to me. Just as important as any of my friends that I have know in person for years. So, if any of you (you know, who you are) read this. I am grateful, most of all, for being invited in to your fold as one of the trouble makers in the Beginners Forum on Runner’s World on-line. So this Sunday go and run some in memory of Elizabeth or anyone that you want to remember. I will. Remember be careful out there.