NYC - Marathon of Helping?

Ok - it's cancelled.

A lot of the blogging community has been weighing the Yes, it's on / No they should cancel it debate for a week now and I can see both sides of the coin so am not going to weigh in on that much. 

But I do feel bad for all of the people who have already flown in from afar to attend a marathon that they aren't even getting to run.  Those flights aren't cheap and neither are their hotels.  While they can likely defer their race entry to another year - it is still a huge let down when most have trained for the better part of a year for this BIG EXPERIENCE race.

In a Runners World issue, a few months back, there was a story about a tornado hitting a town right before a race and the town being devastated.  And instead of coming to run the race - runners came out in droves to help with the recovery efforts.

My thoughts are that there are about to be a whole bunch of people who are in good shape descending on a city for a race they can't run.  Perhaps they should turn the marathon into a Marathon of Helping and put every single runner to work at getting New York back on it's feet again.  

I'd be a different kind of EXPERIENCE, but one that will be no less memorable and like a whole lot more meaningful.

Ok - stepping down from my soapbox now.  Y'all know I don't do that often, but I've been thinking about it all day and had to say something.