Tunnel to Towers: first 5k!

Today I ran in the Tunnel to Towers run through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel up to the WTC site. I was joined by my friends Rebecca, Leslie and Paul from Macy's, and Nicole and Augustin, as well as 15,000 other runners, a great majority of whom were firefighters from the area and beyond (even London, UK). 2008 is the year I discovered running on a regular basis and this was my first timed run. It was just spectacular to run down into the tunnel with thousands of screaming people at your side and be pushed on through the tunnel by the echoing sounds of several groups of Marines doing their chants, each of them in full dress fatigues and carrying all of their combat gear in tribute to the firefighter Stephen Siller, who died in the towers on 9-11-01 after running through the tunnel on his day off to join the rest of his battalion. I feel very proud to be a New Yorker, even though too much flag-waving and screams of "USA, USA!" from local groups of cheerleaders and police make me nervous. The worst residual of the attacks on the WTC to me was the carte blanche given to our most jingoistic leaders to saunter through the world with a big stick. But, as my Dad says daily, Obama will fix it.