A FULL Weekend...

Team CANCER to 5K - Fall 2009

PRE-RACE

Congratulations to the CANCER to 5K Fall 2009 Team on their great day at the United Way 5K in Baltimore on Saturday! Everybody had a good race and one of our runners saw a PR finishing a solid 45 second under her goal-time!

There were plenty of smiles and no rain until after they finished running!

Holly & Heather before the Baltimore Marathon start.

Congratulations go out to my sister Heather, for training for, starting and finishing the 2009 Baltimore Marathon. While she had a really hard race experience (you can read a first-person account of the race on her BLOG), she took it all in stride and did what she needed to do to finish the day.

Running with the 4:15 pace group,

Heather (front, Team FIGHT shirt) was looking strong!

I know because I got to see her on the course

and she said to me "I feel great!" as we high-fived.

Regardless of her finish time, I look upon Heather's entire Marathon Journey as a huge success and an altogether different kind of Personal Record.

My sister trained over the last 9-months for this marathon, under the following conditions:

• after giving birth to her second son
• while taking care of 2 boys (2 year old and a newborn)
• while sharing house-hold duties with her significant other Rich (who also works full time...of course)
• while going back to college, full-time
• and holding down 2 jobs
• she also raised $700.00 for the Ulman Cancer Fund and TEAM FIGHT!

I find my sister's accomplishments very inspiring and I know how hard she worked to find balance and yet still run several races and train consistently for 9-months. I know how hard it is to have *bad race day* and I was never more proud of her than on Saturday. She could have quit but she never stopped moving. She kept on FIGHTING and at the end of the race day, she was already finding the "silver linings" in the bad race experience and recalling the "fun moments" before things went bad. These are the experiences that will continue to make her a strong, better racer as she gets older!

I pity the Age Groupers that come up again my sister as the years go on...they have no idea what lies under that friendly smile and funny demeanor!

What else went on this weekend? Oh just a long run and and 120-mile bike ride - just the last big volume workouts in prep for Beach2 Battleship Full Triathlon and Ironman Race #2 for 2009.

It's OFFICIAL: Let the TAPER BEGIN!

Life is Good! LiveSTRONG!