Tuesday, April 29, 2008

TV Alert: Ryan Shay Special Tonight

I just got an email from Dan Jordan with the following content:

It's been nearly six months since Ryan Shay collapsed and died during the Men's Olympic Marathon
Trials, sending shock waves through the running community and leaving his wife,
Alicia, a widow just months after their marriage.
Tonight at 7:00 p.m.,
Eastern time, ESPN's sports news
show E:60 airs a segment on Ryan and Alicia. (The piece on the Shays is about 20
minutes of the one-hour show.)
A press release offers the following
description:
E:60 reporter Lisa Salters sits down with Ryan’s widow, Alicia,
to explore Shay’s promising running career and sudden death. Alicia
recalls her last words to Ryan and her impressions of him when she saw him
running barely a mile before he took his last steps. She also recounts her
struggle to move forward without her husband and best friend while she continues
to train for the U.S. women’s Olympic trials in the 10,000 meters.
“I just think about him all the time,” Alicia says, “I’d like to say that I feel
his presence with me all the time, but in all honesty there is a huge void
…”
If you can't catch the first airing, ESPN2 will re-run the show at 11:00
p.m. (EST)

I'm going to try and catch this tonight; may have to be ESPN2 at 10 because I have a conference call here at work scheduled til 6. The clip that I saw on ESPN looked really sad. Alicia is scheduled to resume her racing this Sunday running the 10K at the Cardinal Invitational. That's gonna be a tough race for her as Sunday would have been Ryan's 29th birthday.

It's hard to believe its been almost 6 months since the US mens Olympic qualifying trials in New York. I remember trying to watch the trials that Satursday morning online but couldn't connect for some reason. I was shocked when reading later that day about Ryan's death. I was still feeling bummed about his death the following Tuesday when I discovered that we share the same birthday (just 15 years apart). His death along with the 3 everyday non elite runners the month before (Chicago and Army 10 miler the hot weekend and Boardwalk 1/2 in Atlantic City the following weekend) prompted me to schedule an appointment with my cardiologist. I have a heart condition (WPW Syndrome) and a family history of high blood pressure and I had not followed up on my condition in about 10 years. I underwent a nuclear imaging stress test and an echocardiogram in December and just started taking blood pressure meds earlier this month.

I went for a run during lunch today; it was absolutely gorgeous weather out there today. It felt so much better out there compared to last week.

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