Run your race, but don't be in a rush

Published online on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009

They've considered the details of it 1,000 times. On the really bad days, it felt more like 10,000.

Alyssa Samansky had been at a birthday party at the bowling alley. She had an allergic reaction to something she ate; the pizza, they figured.

Her mother dropped by the grocery store on the way home to buy some Benadryl and chocolate milk. This was in late 2005, on the north side of Fresno. Alyssa and her mother and her little sister walked across the parking lot, all holding hands.

A man in a pickup had gone to Blockbuster for a movie that Friday night. He and his wife were hurrying to get some food at Boston Market. They headed the wrong way down a parking lot row.

Tonight is the fourth annual Alyssa Samansky Track Challenge. This year, it's at Clovis West High, on the track next to Teague Avenue, the one with three narrow bleachers, and where high school PE classes run the mile.

It's hard to say whether Alyssa would have been a good runner. Her dad, Aaron, and her mom, Andrea, both ran the 800 at Fresno State. Aaron ran for Reebok after college, even made the Olympic Trials once. Maybe athleticism is inherited, maybe kids just gravitate toward the sports their parents loved.

As adults, most of us never get to run a track race, not even the serious runners. At 40, you can start entering Masters events, but you have to travel for those. Tonight, you can enter a meet. It doesn't matter what your age and speed happen to be. For $10, you can enter one event -- or as many as your body can take.

At 6 p.m., there are two field events, the shot put and the long jump. Starting at 6:30 p.m., there are six running events: the 100, 400 and 800, the 400 and 1600 relay, and the mile run.

There are no trophies, no medals, you just race and find out your finishing time.

You know that guy in your office who swears he could run the 400 in 70 seconds in wingtips? Load him up and bring the video camera. It's time to cash in that comedy gold.

You can smile. It's OK to smile. Yes, that day in the parking lot four years ago was so horrific most of us could never imagine the pain. The man in the truck never saw the mother and her two girls step out. Alyssa died in the parking lot, she was taken away, right out of her mother's hand.

She was 7 years old.

You can't count the number of times you think about something like that. What if we'd stopped at another grocery store? What if I'd have bought regular milk instead of chocolate? Would it have delayed us another 3 seconds? What food was she allergic to?

"It's just awful," Aaron says. "A split second more here or there, and they'd have been back at their car."

The Samanskys have become an enormous part of the Fresno running community. Aaron was from Reno, Nev., and Andrea was from Sacramento before they came to Fresno State to run track. They opened the Sierra Running Company five years ago. Andrea just finished another triathlon. Aaron eventually got a vasectomy reversed, and they had another daughter. Abigail turns 8 on Sunday. Audrey is 2.

Their lives went on, and even though the anger and pain didn't go away, it softened. Those feelings that the driver didn't get a tough enough sentence evolved into something near empathy.

"I know what he's probably gone through," Aaron says.

They aren't going to raise a lot of money today. Last year, fewer than 100 people competed. "It's mostly just people who know me, or my wife, or knew Alyssa," Aaron says.

Alyssa loved to read. She might not have been a runner yet, but she could race through books faster than her parents could get them from the library. The money from the track meet goes to the Woodward Park Library, and they drop off a check for a few hundred bucks every year. That feels pretty good.

If you can't make it to the track today, at least slow down. For a minute or even an hour. Drive slower. Stop for yellow. Look both ways. Go home from work an hour earlier. Take time to appreciate.

It'll feel even better than running fast.