My sister Julie, and our friend Mandy. This is us before the race. Not sure what gave us the crazy idea we could do this, but we did! And best of all we did it together!
There were so many runners...it was so awesome to see all these people out supporting St. Jude! We couldn't even see the start line from where we stood and there were even more people behind us!
We were in coral 12 and finally around 20 minutes after the first coral started we could see the start line!
It was all of our first time running a half marathon (that's 13.1 miles if you haven't already figured out) lol We had so much nervous energy waiting in that line we were literally jumping up and down waiting for them to let us start! We may have finished faster if we didn't waste so much energy before the start! hahaha
It was such an emotional race I think for all of us, but right now I can only really speak for me! Not only was it a huge accomplishment for me to run this race, but it was for such a great cause! And to have all of the people cheering for us as we ran! The most emotional part of it all was running through the St. Jude complex! Seeing all the families and all the signs and realizing that I am actually doing something for these families that I have never met before but are going through a much more difficult race than I was going through. And most if not all had no finish line in sight, but they never stopped, they keep running along hoping one day to cross the finish line! I was never more thankful for my son's health as I was running this weekend! I can not even come close to knowing what these families are going through and these sweet little angels...sometimes life doesn't seem fair...but these kids give such hope! Some sections were extremely hard, and those were the ones where the signs would say "in memory of". That was when I could not help but cry!
Here is me after I crossed the finish line with my medal! When Jules and I came into the stadium we could hear everyone cheering for us, especially Jason and Wes and then we saw the finish line and I don't know how but we both literally sprinted across that line!!!
The red shirts we are wearing are for a little boy Isaiah who we were running for! He is such a sweet little boy.
I ask you to go to my FB page and look him up and read about him! All he has been through this year and he even did the family race! A much bigger accomplishment than mine I have to say! What a hero! I am so glad I got to run to support him!
Before I close out I do want to thank all of those who donated money so I could be a St. Jude hero and run on Saturday! Thank you for believing in me and for donating to such a great cause...helping find a cure for cancer so these kids don't have to suffer anymore! Also a HUGE thank you to my trainer Nick Cotto!!! Nick....you are the one behind all of this. Meeting with you in Feb. of this year I would have never known that on Saturday I would have ran a half marathon. I remember telling you what my goals were, and one of my goals was to run a 5k, but you saw more than that!
And yes folks...me and my sister Jules and friend Mandy are planning our next half! We are trying to get other people to run with us this time!
