Running for Your Life: Pittsburgh 2019

I started this blog going on nine years ago.

The impetus, in part, was a decision to return to marathon running after a hiatus of 23 years.

It began in Pittsburgh, where the Penguins, a team I’ve been following since I played bantam ice hockey in Owen Sound, Ontario, play. The Penguins starting franchise goalie, Les Binkley, was a chum of my local hockey star cousin, Bruce Neath.

So, Pittsburgh it was.

A light rain fell on that day in May 2010. I shocked myself with a personal best time, and the community’s outpouring of support – electric garage bands playing under leaky tarps, come to mind – was also the best I ever experienced during a marathon.

I love this city.

It is with determination and a heavy heart that I will be going back to western Pennsylvania to compete in the 2019 Pittsburgh Marathon on Sunday, May 5.

I will run, as I’m sure countless others will too, in the loving memory of those 11 Jewish worshipers who were massacred last month during services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the city neighborhood of Squirrel Hill.

Pittsburghers will surely be out in force to cheer on those who’ve chosen this city to run in the months after the killings. It is that kind of close-knit town.

Regardless of my race time next May, this marathon promises to be the best in so many ways, far beyond the personal.

Next: Running for Your Life: Penmanship

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