running to celebrate everything

So this Dec. 8th is the second annual Staten Island Trail Festival. I yet again will be running the 25k distance. I'm excited to be running this race again but there's a giant elephant on the room or on the trails this year.

 The stupid storm Sandy that smashed Staten Island in late October left a level of destruction that was horrific and for those of us who didn't suffer any loss from Sandy we still at a minimum lost a week due to the chaos left in Sandy's wake. The following weeks after Sandy felt unsettled, the days were uneasy and again my house and my family lost nothing, suffered nothing. There are thousands who suffered actual loss from Sandy and those weeks were a twisted nightmare of flooded houses, streets filled with massive amounts of debris. Chaos and garbage were everywhere.

 In my neck of the woods it wasn't the flooding it was the downed trees. Massive trees that survived hundreds of storms. Wind, snow, ice these trees stood fast until Sandy. It was if Sandy was a petulant child having a temper tantrum knocking over her toys and smashing her blocks. Trees were picked up and thrown around like they were pixie sticks. Our beloved Greenbelt has certainly had its share of downed trees looked like the hand of a giant swatted down trees in a twisted rage. This giant just ran through the Greenbelt slapping trees down, kicking them over, flipping them ass over tea kettle leaving the trails in such disarray that the Greenbelt has been shut down since Sandy.

 I know that a crew of volunteers and professionals have been diligently putting the Greenbelt back together again. The Festival will go on with some necessary modifications to the trails but by the spring the new sections of trails will simply become the trails and we will run on.

 The race on the 8th was supposed to be the race I trained hard for gave 100% effort etc. etc. Sandy though,threw mine and everyone elses training for a loop, it cancelled the NYC Marathon for heavens sake. So today as I was driving home I decided that I am going to celebrate this race. I am going to celebrate my time running the actual race, the time I spent training, those I trained with and those I will run with. I celebrate my girls at home, our health and happiness, I will celebrate the year that was 2012 and the upcoming 2013. I  have already begun planning out 2013 and look forward to what it has to offer.