Yay!

Yay, I finished the race!!

Although my goal WAS to finish the race, I was a bit disappointed in myself for not doing it a bit faster. I felt better after realizing that 4 of my 8 5K split times were much faster than my first 5K race last September 2008. Also, I finished ahead of 2,010 people and there were another 1,184 who did not finish at all.

Thank you again so much for your support. This whole thing has made me incredibly grateful. It was a great weekend as it became very clear that the marathon was a team effort between me and Jim, and also highlighted the importance of encouragement from others. I had always heard of people drawing parallels between life and running but until recent months had never seen it so clearly.

Jim not only made sure I had all the time I needed for training (which was a lot) but he took care of me all of this weekend, including driving me around, getting me everywhere I needed to be on time (2 1/2 hours early for the race! Those of you who know us well may be more impressed by that fact than the fact that I ran a marathon!) He made decisions for me when I was too frazzled to think straight, and got all of the worries out of my head so I could sleep the night before. Then he waited in 34 degree weather for almost 6 hours for me to cross the finish line, and he cried when he saw me. I am so blessed.

We are so blessed to have family and friends like you who support us not only with donations to the CF Foundation, but with your words of encouragement. Our Team CF raised over $80,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, which will go to research for new treatments and advancing the work of finding a cure. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.