Idea: The Shivery 30 Blanket Run

I visited National Cathedral today with Daniel. If you haven't had the guided tour, you really should do this. We learned a lot of great things. Daniel was terrific, really curious about everything; he asked great questions of the docent.

After a trip up to the observation deck, we made the obligatory visit to the Gift Shop. We got a couple things, and when we rang up, the sales person asked if we wanted to donate $15 to buy a blanket for a needy DC family. Since I'm not a heartless ogre, I went ahead and ponied up.

Then I started thinking: $15 for a blanket. Every time I run, I see homeless guys out there freezing in sweatshirts. And I'd already been playing with the idea of doing another ultramarathon and having people donate blankets. But here is a ready-made mechanism for getting blankets into peoples' hands... just waiting for a knucklehead like me to drive people to it.

I'm not thinking of doing another 46 miler for this... first off, Sònia wouldn't have it. And second off, Sònia wouldn't have it! But I already do 30 mile training runs pretty regularly. I could just do a 30 mile run, get people to sign up and send money to the Cathedral, and voila: cold homeless people get warm! A dollar a mile pledge would equal two blankets per donation. And the block around National Cathedral is just at one mile and a bit... I could actually run the thing around the Cathedral! So I'm giving some actual thought to this. I'm not saying it's a done deal... I'm just saying it sounds do-able. Really. Hmmm.