Thoughts of my Heart From the Pavement: Ahmaud Arbery
Welcome to the SoleRoots Racing blog! This blog will be filled with different content bi-weekly. It will always be related to our sport we love and literally endure.
The inspiration for this post comes from Ahmaud Arbery and his tragic murder. Two very dear people are the contributors for this weeks blog. My wife, Christin Woodard and good friend, Ben Clarke.
Read time ~5 minutes
By: Christin Woodard
Today’s run dedicated to Ahmaud Arbery.
As I was running on pavement today it was somber beneath a gray sky and cool wind blowing. I felt heartache in the midst of what should be joyful. I felt sadness. For Ahmaud Arbery, whom I do not know, his death was inhumane.
I looked down at my feet. My feet were on the pavement and my left foot didn't argue with the direction of the right foot and my right foot didn't argue with the left. One foot went forward and then the other. The left foot didn't go in the opposite direction of the right.
This reminded me that my body works harmoniously to go forward. My body doesn't work together to move backwards well. In this moment of tragedy, as we are all created the same how can we not work harmoniously together? We're all human. This is humanity. And then I thought as I was just pounding the pavement and I could feel my heartbeat and it reminded me that today my watch isn't about my time ran. My watch doesn't do anything to time or calculate hate. It does calculate something outside of time. It calculates my heart rate and it reminded me that as my heart is beating, it beats faster when I'm running. Why can't we express love faster to others? Why do we have to create hate? There is no place here for that. There is no place for hate. So my prayer is that we can see beyond the hate. We can move together in a forward direction harmoniously with love.
Today we are doing this! We're running for our health and to be healthy we can't have something toxic in our bodies or in our environment to be exposed to. As we move forward we need to remove the toxins that are built up; particularly the system that has allowed this to occur, whether that's our political figures, community and schools, and most importantly, our family unit. We need to remove the toxin. We need to remove the toxin of hatred, lies, malice, and manipulation. Once again, there is no place for this.
Let us move forward harmoniously with love and remove the toxins. Starting from within our family unit spreading within our community and schools all the way up and it will eventually mature and grow. As it should be the way we were created to look different. #irunwithahmaud
By: Ben Clarke
2.23 Miles for a Man I Never Met
I run for Maud tonight. Ahmaud Arbery was a young man, a runner like me. He, however, didn’t have the chance to run these miles for his birthday today.
I long for justice. Justice seemed slow while the justice system in my state did seemingly nothing from February 23 until yesterday for a man who was shot in the middle of a street because two men thought he might have been a threat to their possession. It sure looks like the cause was racism from the outside. The GBI sure didn’t seem to think it was at all justified.
I long for a day that we don’t read these stories and our nation and our world are not galvanized against each other.
I long for the image of the Creator of Life to be seen through every race and skin color and nationality. In the beginning, God created man and women in His image.
I can’t make this happen alone, but I know that I can do everything in my power to raise my kids to see the evil of racism.
I’m not the judge or the jury and I won’t be, but Maud shouldn’t be dead tonight. His mother’s arms shouldn’t be empty on his birthday. Nobody should die for a falsely assumed burglary. Life matters way too much. His death was senseless because his life mattered.
I ran on my treadmill tonight because at night the thing that I fear is dogs... an animal that can behave wildly when in the country. I can’t comprehend a fear like my black brothers and sisters and their spouses and families experience just because of their skin color. A friend said this: “it’s hard to be black in America.” I’m going to fight for you in my circles and with my kids.