Run for Eliza

I am at a loss.

A woman goes running to feel good. Healthy. Free.  

READ: Here’s the Latest in the Eliza Fletcher Abduction and Murder (Runner’s World)

She juggles family and work and everything else, so she wakes early, very early, to get in her run.

On her run, she gets abducted, and then murdered.

What the F*&!# is all I can think to say. Anger, sadness, compassion, grief, frustration, sickness. All the emotions that come out of senseless acts of violence.

There is nothing Eliza Fletcher could have, should have had to do to avoid her tragedy. She should not have had to wait until daylight to run. She should not have had to run with a buddy to run.

She should not have had to wear different, more concealing running clothes. She should not have had to carry pepper spray or any other self-defense tools.

She should have been able to go on a run and safely return home.

I did write about safety here recently. Here are those tips. https://www.nonetorun.com/blog/staying-safe-when-you-run

But please, world, do not make these tips necessary for women—anyone—to be outside.

Running, like all sports, has a community that is powered by common interests, often common pain. This pain—the loss of one of us—hurts far more than any physical discomfort brought on by running. Any aching muscles, pounding chests. This pain is the kind of pain that should bring us together to run in Eliza Fletcher’s memory, in her honor.

Here are links to a few events happening in her honor. Please join one of them or think of Eliza on your own the next time you go on a run. Or a walk, or take a breath freely even sitting at your desk.

In Honor of Eliza Fletcher

Finish Eliza’s Run, Friday, September 9, 4:20am-7am:

https://www.facebook.com/events/4048968448662454?ref=newsfeed

Finish Eliza’s Run, virtual from September 9-11:

https://runsignup.com/Race/Events/OR/Anytown/RunforEliza#event-644730

#runforeliza