Running For Peace

by Ginny Megin

I've been a runner since about 1972 or '73, when “jogging” (as it was called back then) was considered a fad. I've run about a dozen marathons. I ran my 3:27 PB in Vancouver in the early 1980's, thanks to altitude training in a small town outside of Prince George (British Columbia), way up north in the mountains. But that's another story.

This one's about my birthday, August 6, the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. In the early 1990's, I thought a lot about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the bombing. On my birthday, I ran for just over 2 hours. As I ran, I decided to dedicate each footstep to someone who was killed during the bombing. My decision and action that day had a very deep emotional and spiritual impact on me.

A couple of years later, I decided to run 50 km on my 50th birthday, raising money for nuclear disarmament. I raised over $3000 and it was wonderful.

Well, I’m turning 61 this year. My goal is to involve the community in thinking about peace. I'm still raising money for disarmament through Physicians for Global Survival AND I'm also focusing on asking people to think about peace when they do something physically active around the anniversary of Hiroshima.

So if you're running on the long weekend, or spending some time in a beautiful place on holidays, would you please spend a minute to send some positive energy into the universe aimed at us having a more peaceful world? Hiroshima itself has become a peace centre. Let's add to that intent.

Here's an interesting piece of history. In 1959, President Eisenhower said "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than governments”. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it."

Maybe if everybody on the face of the earth had the opportunity to see the world as we runners are privileged to see it, we'd have a more peaceful world.

Cheers.

Yours in peace,

Ginny Megin
Burlington, Ontario

Bennett Cohen (the Savvy Runner) and Gail Gould are the Founders and Presidents of the International Association of Women Runners (IAWR). To learn more about this global community of women who share a passion for running, visit www.iawr-connect.com.

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