Birmingham. It’s 4:23 a.m. It’s chilly. There is a quilt of fog suspended over the foothills of the Appalachians. The whole world is dark.
I should not be up at this hour. I am hardly awake. My hair is a mess. My eyes are crusted. But here I am. Standing in a park alongside a handful of average, middle-aged people all wearing impossibly short jogging shorts.
We’re a small group. We are strangers. None of us have met before. We don’t even know each other’s names.
We come in different shapes, colors, creeds, and sizes. Some are runners. Most of us are just ordinary people who haven’t donned athletic shorts since the Jimmy Carter administration.
We are here to finish Eliza’s run.
Eliza Fletcher. She was 34 years old when she was abducted and killed in Memphis. It happened after she woke early last Friday to complete her jogging route. She went out early. Around 4:30 a.m. She never finished. Her body was found, like refuse.
She was a kindergarten teacher. A wife. A mother. She was
beautiful. Just out for a jog.
This morning, all over the United States runners are getting together to finish Eliza’s run.
In Memphis, 2,100 signed up to run Eliza’s daily route and finish what Eliza started. In Raleigh, North Carolina, people have gathered. In Cleveland, Ohio, hundreds from around the city are running privately. In Colorado Springs, nearby mountain trails are choked with runners for Eliza. Oklahoma City. Sacramento. Detroit. San Antonio. Wichita. Laramie. Orlando.
We start jogging. Within seconds I am acutely aware of just how hopelessly out of shape I am.
One of us is a 48-year-old woman. She is tall, well over six feet. A lawyer. Her friend challenged her to run a half marathon on her fortieth birthday. That’s how she started jogging.
“I’m here this morning,” she says, “because Eliza could have been me.”
I meet another woman.…