Team A: It's a No-Go

It is with mixed emotions that I blog this morning and relay that we have ultimately decided to cancel the 2011 Run for the Reason. As a group and with much advisement from other folks we came to the decision that continuing with the event would be inappropriate in the wake of the destruction, the outages and the deaths as a result of the storms that passed through yesterday and into the evening. Just to recap the last 12 hours or so:

 

At around 7pm Kevin Manogue sent an email out notifying all runners and drivers that we would continue as planned, however we would cancel the Run if we were to lose more runners or drivers (we were already down to 5 and 3 respectively per team), the roads were impassible in any of the areas we would be running and if the optics of continuing with the Run made us uncomfortable after we were able as a corporation to survey the damage. Team A rallied at Inverness around 9:30 last night and decided we would make the trek to Anniston to our hotel and make a game time decision in the morning. At 5 am this morning we woke up, hesitantly tuned into the news, and put on our running clothes  -- well except for Chesley, who is a cross between a modern day cave man and renaissance man and was appropriately dressed in khaki pants and wearing no shoes. We discovered yet another obstacle as we packed up at the hotel to head to our starting point that we had no rope or bungee cords with which to affix our banners. And, as we pulled up to the Georgia State Line sign we made our final call…

 

Admittedly, none of us were really jumping up and down about having to run additional mileage with fewer resources, but for varied reasons each of our teammates are ultimately feeling disappointed. From a personal perspective I am disappointed that I couldn't slog through my 25 miles to prove to my mom that I'm here for her. I'm disappointed that I couldn't endure the unanticipated circumstances and additional mileage – just as my mom had to endure her unanticipated circumstance and additional encumbrances cancer provided for her. I don't speak for my whole team when I say this, but for me personally there is a certain degree of defeat that I'm feeling at this moment. Having said that I can admit that I believe we made the "right" decision. The good news out of all of this is that we will likely be able to donate more money to ACS as we have now nearly eliminated our travel expenses. And, we have been able to offer our time and service to the communities, should they need/want it, in recovery efforts. 

 

And finally to our followers -- I am disappointed that you will no longer be treated to our witty blogs during the next three days. It's truly sad for you all that you'll have to find other avenues to fill the entertainment void our blog is undoubtedly leaving. For that, we apologize.

 

We'll be back soon to update you all on how everything pans out. But for now, thank you for your support. Thank you for your donations. Thank you for reading.

 

RFTR Crew