An ice storm rolled through a big part of the U.S. earlier this week. It came through the South, including Atlanta, and the city slowed to a crawl. I know people up North like to joke about how we handle winter weather down here. I’ve lived up North. I get it. The truth is simple: we aren’t built for ice. It doesn’t happen often enough to justify the infrastructure. Schools closed. County offices shut down. Things paused.

On Monday, it was cold but the roads were looking better. I made a run to the post office to drop off a few Peregrune packages. The post office was fully open. Doing their jobs, even as much of the city stayed home. I was grateful for it, knowing that many of you are waiting on packages this week.

The U.S. Postal Service has a famous motto carved into the James A. Farley Post Office in New York City:

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

This quotation traces back over 2,000 years to Herodotus, the Greek historian often called the “Father of History.” In The Histories, he wrote about Persian messengers who carried messages across vast distances, through heat, storms, darkness, and danger, without fail. 

You know who else that quotation reminds me of?

You. 

You run in heat. You run in rain. You run in cold, wind, darkness, and gloom. You train when other hobbies would cancel. You show up when it would be easier to stay inside. Some of you have raced in conditions that would have shut down entire events in other sports. That’s not normal. It’s special.

If you ever forget that, hear it from me: what you’re doing matters. It takes grit. It takes consistency. It says something good about who you are.

I’m glad you’re running with us.

Best wishes on chasing your running goals,
George