April 27, 2009

Well "We Did It".  Autumn and I just finished our first 1/2 Marathon and Marathon and had a blast the entire weekend.  What a rush!  The streets were lined with people and the bands playing were great.  Brian carried the camera all 26.2 miles and seemed to show everywhere along the route.  I think he had as much fun as we did.    We both were pretty pumped when we hit the finish line with all those people cheering us on. 

The Marathon was tough and wound up being the hottest "Country Music Marathon" in their 10 year history.  At 10:00 am the temperature was 85 degress with wind gusts in the 15 mph range.  Certainly to us, it felt like 1,000 degrees with winds up to 100 mph.  The course was very hilly and of the 31,000 plus people running 5,000 did not finish.  Several homeowners had their water hoses out wetting runners down as we passed...that felt great.  We were very excited that we were able to overcome the conditions and finish the race.  It was great to finally meet in person and be with all of "Team Sjogren's".  I was so glad to put names with faces of these great people that we have trained with online for  months.  Our small group of six runners raised $30,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Our shirts stood out, we all finished the race and we raised very important funds to help fight Sjogren's Syndrome. Alot of the miles running were spent answering questions about our shirts and what Sjogrens was.  It was great to know that we were raising awareness....

We can't thank you enough for your generosity and support throughout this whole undertaking.  It was a great experience and Brian has already been researching our next "run" or "muddy buddy" event.....