COMMUNITY

Sometime late in the last century, I first became aware of people using the word “community” in a way that was different from how I defined it. Perhaps I am a bit of a pedestrian or concrete (some might opine, “hard-headed”) thinker, but community to me had at least a little something to do with geography. “A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government” is one classic definition of community. Even more place-central is this American Heritage definition: “the district or locality in which such a group lives.”
I have a very vivid memory of running smack into the realization that community had become a more global concept. Words evolve over time and I suppose I had encountered references to a less boundary-specific interpretation of community before the particular incident that caused me to take notice, but it is this particular day and line that I recall. The local public radio station had just thanked one of their underwriters, a yarn and knitting supply shop that included the phrase “serving the community of knitters” in its motto, which the announcer duly read on the air.
For some reason, this struck me as comical. What, I wondered, was a “community of knitters” and what did it mean to count yourself among them? How did they identify one another as being members? Was a certain level of expertise implied? Is there discrimination against knitters requiring the formation of a community for support?
Before all the knitters out there start sharpening their knitting needles to hurl (or purl) my way, my reaction is not due to being anti-knitting. It’s just that I grew up in an age when people referred to their recreational pastimes as hobbies. People collected things (stamps, coins), built models (cars, planes), took photographs, played sports or in some cases, knitted.
My mom liked to bowl and was in a league. My brother fished and had a great collection of flies he’d tied himself (kept in a special box I was not allowed to open without his express permission). Mr. O down the street played baseball after work for a Detroit city team. Despite having grown up around folks with hobbies, I never once heard any reference to a community of bowlers, of fly-fishers, or of ball players. You had a hobby and you did it in the neighborhood or nearby area with other people who shared your enthusiasm.
After my run-in with the community of knitters phrase, I continued to hear community used to describe groups of people. There are communities of churches, teachers, and there is the wellness community that provides much appreciated support to families in the midst of cancer diagnoses and treatment. With the advent of the Internet and explosion of interest-based websites, it’s fair to say there are now communities of just about every conceivable group you might imagine, and beyond, e.g., CER: Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies, bringing together 66 railway undertakings and infrastructure companies from the European Union, the accession countries (Croatia and Turkey) as well as from the Western Balkan countries, Norway, and Switzerland.
While I grew increasingly accepting of the expanding meaning of community as used by others, I never identified with any community beyond the ones I lived in at any given time. Personally, I remained skeptical. I leaned more toward the view of Kurt Vonnegut, who invented the word “granfalloon,” meaning a group of people who outwardly choose or claim to have a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is actually meaningless. He used as an example two people from Indiana meeting in a foreign country and finding meaning in both being Hoosiers. Other granfallon groups he cites include General Electric and the DAR. [To read more, his novel Cat’s Cradle and book of essays Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons are good beginnings.]
That all changed for me this year. Until a few weeks ago, I would have scoffed at the notion of a “community of runners.” Have I met people across the country in my travels who have shared rooms, rides, stories, food, bodyglide and food with me, extended warmth and trust, opened their homes to me based pretty much on just on our shared status as runners? You bet. When I first moved here to Rapid City, did the Black Hills Runners Club welcome me, teach me, and help me when I needed a hand? Resounding so.
Still, the notion of something so high-faluting sounding as a Community of Runners was not a phrase I ever used and certainly not something I would have contemplated writing about until the death of Ryan Shay. Ryan Shay died November 3, 2007 at about the 5.5 mile mark in the Olympic Trials Race in Central Park, New York City. He was 28 years old.
While most people who are not runners seem to have barely registered this tragedy, runners across the country and of all calibers have taken time to acknowledge the passing of a colleague and a champion. What I find interesting is that after the Chicago Marathon earlier this year, lots of non-running friends wanted to talk about what happened there [due to extremely warm weather, the race was closed early, a number of participants were hospitalized and one died]. In comparison, only other runners have talked with me about Shay’s death.
This is not a criticism, not at all. The point is that I’ve discovered there is a community of runners that follows the sport closely and cares deeply about its own. By the afternoon of Shay’s death, his dad had posted a thank you at LetsRun.com, a well-known Internet running board that read: “My family, Alicia, and I can not thank you enough for your thoughts and prayers. The calls and e-mails are over whelming. God bless you all. Joe Shay.” It’s become the “Official Ryan Shay Remembrance Thread,” with nearly 30 web pages to date of posts from all over.

The emotion in those posts is simply eloquent. Ryan’s former teammates posted about his work ethic, his gutsy approach to all running, his spirit and sense of play. Less gifted runners posted about Ryan’s determination inspiring them. Some who had crossed paths with him remembered him taking time to run with them and encourage them. People who only knew of him through what they read in running magazines posted. Some were lengthy, some as brief as “8 miles. All for Ryan.”
Ryan, an elite runner, wasn’t one of the top seeds at the Trials. Runner’s World did not place him in their top 10, but did acknowledge him as a “dark horse.” There were 130 men vying for just 3 slots on the 2008 Olympic Team in Beijing. Ryan was the 2003 USA Marathon Champion but he would have to shave at least a few minutes off his PR of 2:14:29 in order to qualify for the Olympic Team, given the competition at the Trials.
He epitomized the Olympic Spirit. In an interview with Runner’s World in October, he explained: "I know it's going to be difficult. You just hope that you have the perfect day. What else can I do, sit home? You go out there to race. If you have the qualifying mark, you've got to go out there. That's what makes our system of qualifying for the Olympic team great, because it gives even the biggest underdog a shot at making the team.”
Ryan’s heart was enlarged. It was initially diagnosed when he was 14. His dad, Joe Shay, a track coach at Central Lake, Michigan said the very thing that made him great is what may have killed him. Shay’s resting heart rate was so low doctors told him he may need a pacemaker when he got older.
Just four months ago, on July 7, Shay married Alicia Craig, a Wyoming runner from Gilette who gained noteriety running for Campbell County and then Stanford. In 2004, she set the women’s NCAA 10,000 meter record. She is also vying for a spot on the 2008 Olympic Team. She and Ryan met at the New York marathon in 2005.
Ryan Hall, the winner of the Trials, was at the Shay-Craig wedding. His wife, Sara, was a teammate of Alicia’s at Stanford and a bridesmaid in the wedding. Hall has dedicated his upcoming Olympic race to Shay. Fellow Michigander Brian Sell, who finished in third at the Trials, cried at the post race news conference. "I'd trade my Olympic spot in a split second to have him back," Sell said later.
At the Central Lake high school track where Ryan and his 7 brothers and sisters ran under the tutelage of their coaching parents, memorial runs were held for 3 nights in early November, marked with 600 luminaria. One father and daughter showed up determined to run the 20.7 miles Ryan didn’t finish at the Trials. Amby Burfoot, an editor at Runner’s World magazine and 1968 winner of the Boston Marathon interview Ryan’s youngest brother, Stephen, a college junior and cross-country runner at one of the runs. Describing the many ways Ryan was a positive influence on his life, he explained: “I didn’t just lose a brother. I lost my hero.”
Now that I see and believe there is a community of runners, I need to be a responsible member of the group. I can’t think of any better way to begin than to use this space allocated to me to remember Ryan Shay with all of you. Godspeed, Ryan.