Having gone through a brutal attack in 2001, New York and its citizens have been quick to rush to the side of their neighbors a few hours up the Atlantic coast. It’s particularly touching to see this considering the largely antagonistic relationship NYC and Boston typically enjoy: as a Midwest transplant who came to college in New York during the thickest part of the modern Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, it was impossible for me to miss. Now New York Times stalwart (and fellow East Coast resident) Thomas Friedman writes on the need to keep our chins up — as Bostonians, and Americans: Read the full article

Author Dennis Lehane has made his bones by writing stories about trauma tearing Boston communities apart — his novels Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone each inspired Oscar-nominated movies and attracted some of our finest actors who recognized Lehane’s touch with human experience and emotion as fertile grounds for a career-defining performance. Yet these explorations of tragedy in his hometown have only fortified his belief in Boston’s resilience, a sentiment he captures beautifully, writing for the New York Times: Read the full article

Charles Pierce of Grantland is one of the finest writers handling sports these days. I think of him sort of carrying the torch of freewheeling-yet-direct observational and humor-laden pop-sports writing — a less “beat”-y Hunter S. Thompson, if you will. More importantly he’s got Boston running in his veins, as a former writer of the now defunct Phoenix. He penned an excellent piece that finds relief Read the full article

It’s Stanford week — we’re just days from arguably the most exciting collection of distance races in America, at the Payton Jordan Invitational.

Rebecca Donaghue is as excited as American running fans are — not least because she can escape the rain of central Pennsylvania for a few days. A recent blog post captures her excitement, as she writes about a beautiful, zen-like run that served as one of her final workouts (essentially a long bout of tempo work) before heading to the West Coast.

It takes me about a mile to settle in and get into a rhythm. Once that happens I start to notice where we are for a few brief moments, the rushing Juniata river to our left, remnants of torn down railroad bridges, and farmland to our right. It’s definitely a different kind of focus than being on the track, and much needed since we’ve been doing this type of workout mostly on the track for the past few months. I’m still able to zone out; it’s just slightly different having new things to look at here and there. All and all it made for a harder workout than the track but ends up being one of my strongest workouts yet.

Rebecca will run the 5000m on Sunday May 1st, her first race on the track since last June. You can read the full blog at RunningRebecca.com, linked here.