The Longest Mile

Driving four hours and 233.5 miles one way is a long way to go just to run a mile. But that's exactly what I did on Friday when I made the trip from Raleigh, N.C., to Blacksburg, Va. for the 26th annual Draper Mile road race.

Crazy? Probably so, but having run at least one road race per weekend since Memorial Day, I needed to find a race to keep my streak alive. There were a couple races closer by on Saturday, but obligations during the day would prevent me from running those. The Draper Mile was only other option I found.

I set out for Blacksburg around 7 a.m. and arrived just before 11 a.m. for the 6:40 p.m. race. So what did I do all the time before the race? The Draper Mile is actually part of the annual Steppin' Out arts and crafts street festival held every summer in downtown Blacksburg. So I spent the day checking out the vendors, listening to some music by area musicians and strolling around the campus of Virginia Tech.

While visiting the town and campus, I could not help but think back to the tragic events that took place there just four months before. I had the sense that the community, while trying to move forward, is still healing from the tragedy, and that an event like the Steppin' Out festival aided in that process by bringing people from the community together.

That reflective, yet forward-looking attitude was on display in the message "We are Virginia Tech" or "We are the Hokies: We Will Prevail" that appeared on signs, in storefronts and on T-shirts throughout the town. During the festival, the Lyric, downtown Blacksburg restored, 1930s era movie theater, showed a slideshow of the events of April 16, 2007.

On campus, a memorial to the 32 victims who died in the shootings that day is still present on the campus Drillfield in front of the main administrative building, just a short distance from Norris Hall, where the incident occurred. Thirty-two stones -- each marked with the name of a victim -- were arranged in a semi-circle. Flowers, Virginia Tech flags and other items left for the victims rested among the stones. A placard among the memorial indicated the university administration's plans to erect a permanent memorial to the victims on campus in the near future.

After seeing the memorial and reflecting on the tragedy, running was, in a way, therapeutic. How blessed I am to experience life when these lives were tragically cut short. How blessed I am with the ability to run when there are many who can't. I decided just before the start of the Draper Mile to run the race all out and treat it as a time trial of sorts. I could push it hard for a mile, I told myself.

Aided, no doubt, by a downhill course, I posted my fastest ever recorded mile time, finishing in just under six minutes with a time of 5 minutes, 58 seconds. Then I made the trip back to Raleigh.

Eight hours and more than 467 miles was a long way to travel for a 5 minute, 58 second run of just one mile, but it was worth every minute.