Bostonians are avid runners! For those who have never been to Boston or the northeastern corner of the States, it may come as a surprise that a lot of people are living a very active and healthy lifestyle. One thing that surprised me was that where I live, there are none of the major fast food restaurants present. Instead there are a lot of healthy alternatives… Before moving to Boston I would usually scout the city I was going to visit for sports stores, because running shoes and apparel is so much cheaper. I have often had a hard time finding real running clothes (and not just T-shirts). It was not until I visited Boston for the first time last year that I not only found it easy, but also an incredibly large selection – the largest I have seen anywhere. And boy, do the run. No matter what time a day you go for a run several like-minded joggers or fast-pace runners will join you.
I previously wrote about the Boston Marathon, in which I was only an active spectator. Heading for the Memorial Day weekend, I was to run the “Run to Remember” half marathon, which in addition had a 5K run for those who didn’t want to suffer as much. Many runs here are what I would call “run-for-the-cause” runs. This run was to honor law enforcement officers who had been killed on duty. In a addition the speaker announced on several occasions that we were also fundraising for children at risk… I’m pretty sure that like me, most of the participant had not the slightest idea about “risk” of what? Anyway, who doesn’t want to help children at some kind of risk.
Close to 9,000 runners of which more than half did the 21K participated. I have to say that it was pretty amazing to see how many different reasons there are to run. Run to cure cancer, raise funds for the Children’s Hospital, Crohn’s and colititis research, leukemia research, and so many different diseases that you almost had a full medical dictionary made by the peloton.
I think it’s nice to run for others than yourself. I would like to do that so I looked into it bit. But it’s not only the thought that counts. Often you have to raise several thousand dollars (or pay them yourself) to run for a specific team (or cause). Being born and raised in Denmark, where we are the “proud” payers of sky-high tax, I guess fundraising is close to trying to ask people living in the dessert if they would like to buy some sand. So I have no idea how to do fundraising (and not $3,000+ to pay myself). So nope, in Denmark we pay our tax so we don’t need to invest time in helping others (in my opinion, at least to some extend).
I’ve heard many people say (especially people who have never been to the States) that Americans are greedy and only caring for themselves. I could not disagree more (at least from my Bostonian experience). Here, people have the right to be “greedy”, but what I also experience is that people actually invest their time, thought and money in the less fortunate and for good causes. I for myself would be pretty proud to run in a shirt from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (where I work), knowing that I had raised more than $3,000 for research or something good. But no, I pay my high Danish tax and run for myself. Somehow sad I think… (NB. Since running is health-associated there are a lot of health-related causes, but don’t think that it’s only because people just what to raise money to prevent some disease they might get someday. Outside running, time is invested in many other causes, like helping homeless people for instance).
No matter for which reason I ran the race and it was awesome. Running in historic Boston a warm Sunday morning late in May, with so many great people cheering. It was definitely worth a damaged toe and sore legs.
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