Race2Walk2016
I have to come clean.
A few months ago, when Kelly told me about his idea to run the top 10 most-contested running races … half-as-fast as the current record times … on the tracks that the records were set …
And that he would do so to raise money to buy a bionic suit (a what?) for Amanda Boxtel’s Bridging Bionics Foundation …
And that he was doing it in honor of his 60th birthday...
And that the first race would be in Rome...
I rolled my eyes.
It was typical Kelly.
After all, there was the winter he skied every run on all four Aspen Mountains. The summer he ran from Glenwood Springs to the top of Independence Pass (in intervals, but still). He’s run the Big Sur Marathon a couple times. And he has a 1,910-day running streak (and counting). Oh, and then there was the day he skied Aspen Mountain at dawn, hopped a plane and surfed Waikiki at sunset.
But here we are in Rome.
And, Thursday, July 7, Kelly will run the Mile in the Stadio Olimpico, on the very same track and on the very date that Hicham El Guerrouj set the world record of 3:43.1 in 1999.
He’s been training. He’s ready. And he’s determined. It’s off to the races, for real.
I couldn’t be more proud.
The Stadio Olimpico on a hot July afternoon