Summer in Seattle: Sheila's First Marathon!

My friend Sheila ran her first marathon last Saturday. It was really emotional to say the least. She trained with a group called Team in Training. They raise money for blood cancers and they have members all across the country. Out of the 27,000 people running the marathon, 21,000 ran a half and only 6,000 ran the full and out of those, around 4500 actually finished the whole marathon.

The day of the marathon the weather was perfect! Cool, but not rainy. Stefani and I met her at the half way point. I wasn't sure what to expect. We saw a lot of people going by that looked like they were in a lot of pain. We waited with our signs of encouragement and camera ready! Suddenly we saw her! She looked great

She started sprinting up the hill and said she was doing good.

Her friend Jeff came in the night before from Los Angeles to surprise her at the finish line. He hid behind a tree so as not to ruin the surpise!. He looks more like a deviant here, but trust me, he's a good guy!

We left and had lunch down by the water and watched the ferry to and from Bainbridge Island. All we kept trying figure out what was where Sheila was. We got an update that she had finished a 30k. How far is that?

After a little while we made our way up to Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, and waited for her to come across the finish line. I knew it would be a complete tear fest when she us! We watched every walk of life cross that finish line. It really put a new face on the person who runs a marathon. Young and old, slim and heavy. One man was 80 and this was his 400th marathon. That's amazing! Is that really possible? Someone do the math for me.

So at 7 hours, 1 minute and 29 seconds Sheila came running across the finish line and then she saw Jeff and just lost it. I asked her later what she thought when she saw Jeff and she said "I thought maybe I didn't make it and I was having an halucination and that I was actually in the back of an ambulance!"



All that work and training really paid off. I'm so proud of her. She helped raise $650,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. What an inspiration!