The "Raven" can't stop running

Anyone who knows the Raven, South Beach's unceasing long-distance runner, knew ahead of time there was never a question of whether or not he would complete his 100,000th mile yesterday.

The real question was: would he show up the day after?

Indeed, the sub-head on yesterday's Herald story was "At 100,000 miles is it time to call it quits?"

A few weeks ago as March 29th neared, I asked the Raven if he planned to keep running.

"No one knows," he said with a sly smile.

A small knot of people gathered around the 5th Street lifeguard station this afternoon.

By 5 o'clock, there were about a dozen of his faithful, talking quietly in groups of two or three. No one seemed to know if the Raven would show.

At 5:07, with an ESPN camera crew in tow, the Raven made his way across the beach to the lifeguard stand.

And as a formation of 15 brown pelicans flew overhead the Raven spoke, "Well, I guess you all wanna know."

"Yeah," the faithful answered.

"I'm gonna run," said the Raven.

Applause.

"But," he added, "if i don't feel good one day, I might just do six miles instead of 8."

The Raven, it seems, can't stop running.