This year – all five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes of it – has been amazing.  I am so grateful to everyone who has supported me, traveled to races and made a donations.   Thank you!  When I set out on this adventure I didn’t really know what to expect.  Now that it’s come full circle I’m not sure it’s set in yet on what an accomplishment this has been.   I’ve traveled to 7 states, written 86 blog posts, ran over 1012 miles and raised $10,457.28 (with a few more donations to be counted) for the MS Society.  All along I’ve had one goal – to make a difference to those who live their lives with Multiple Sclerosis. 

Since my life really isn’t that exciting to keep a blog of it and without all the running and fundraising I wouldn’t have anything to write about, this will be the last post of “My Reason 2 Run”.  Another appropriate ending is that today would have been my mom’s 57th Birthday – Happy Birthday mom!!  I love you. 

Before I go, I wanted to share one last picture with you.  My birthday gift back in August from Kris was a case to put all my medals in.  We hung it on the wall right away, but decided to wait until all the races were done before putting the medals in the case.  Well this past weekend we added the medals and one of the bibs – it turned out very cool!!

I wish everyone all the very best in 2011!! 

–Michelle

Months ago I entered the lottery for the NYC Half Marathon which is held in March. We haven’t been to NYC in a few years so a long weekend trip sounded very appealing.  I’ve never entered a lottery for a race before so I really had no idea what my odds were. Well the results were posed today and when I logged onto my account this is what I saw:

Half-marathon registration status:  ACCEPTED

Yeah!!! Just last week I decided not to enter the lottery for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler held in DC in the Spring.  I was still really sore and tired from Vegas. I had a bad run over the weekend and everything hurt. Well today it was all different.  I had a really good run at my new gym and felt a lot better. So it was perfect timing to find out about New York. If the course is the same as last year the race starts in Central Park and makes one loop around – runs down 42^nd street – and finishes in Battery Park. Sounds like a great course and I’m very excited  

Have a great rest of the week!

Michelle

When Michelle originally came up with the idea to run these races, her goal was to raise $5,000.  I thought that the running would be tough, but the fund raising would be impossible.  After further thought, she decided $5,000 wasn’t enough, and was going to shoot for $10,000.   Now, I do a lot of math for a living and it didn’t take me long to realize that $10,000 a year was over $800 a month.  If you have never tried to raise money, let me tell you, it is very hard.  However, month after month and race after race, the money kept coming in.  I can’t tell you how proud I am of my wife and her accomplishments.  Congrats Shelly – Now stop running for a while.

Some people say a picture is worth a thousand words, well, here is 10,000 words that I think describes our year.

Kris

Weather – low 40’s at starting time – clear and sunny

Miles ran this year – 996 (goal 1050)

Viva Las Vegas!!  I can’t believe how quickly this year has passed and that Race #12 is finished!  This is the longest it’s taken me to post a race recap – sorry about that.  Between the craziness of Vegas and being exhausted when we got home I’m a little behind on things!  We left for Vegas at the crazy hour of 615am last Friday. Since Vegas is 3 hours behind us in time it seemed to be a never ending morning. We finally arrived about 1030am and it was time for the fun to begin.  We were joined by some of our DC friends as well as well as some of my high school friends for the weekend and had a great time! 

Friday night the first activity was the National Finals Rodeo.  No, I’m not a big rodeo girl, but this was on the bucket list of one of my friends so off we went to see some cowboys!  It ended up being a lot of fun.   

Saturday morning we were all signed up for the Las Vegas Great Santa Run.  It was a 5k or 1 mile walk to benefit Opportunity Village.  Kris was in charge of directions and declared we could walk the “3/4 of a mile or so” to the start of the race.  Well that 3/4 of a mile turned out to be about 2 miles!  After walking, walking and walking we finally got there and donned our Santa suites.  While the run was for a great cause it was also incredibly disorganized!!  Since we talked 2 miles to get there we decided to just do the 1 mile walk instead.  Even that was chaotic!  We took some pictures, wandered around the Town Square and called our race complete  

We still had to pick up our race packets so that was next on the list.  The expo was packed and we got in and out fairly quickly.  Whew!  The time change was catching up to me and after lunch I had to close my eyes for a little nap.  Saturday night all the runners in our group gathered for a pasta dinner and then it was time to get some much needed sleep. 

Sunday was yet another early morning as the race started at 7am.  We had a great group of runners – Laurie, Mike, Jason, Omar, Kris and I all ran the half; Rachel and Ed ran the full – AWESOME job everyone   It was a pretty cool race as they closed down the entire strip for the event.  We started out at Mandalay Bay and ran down toward the Stratosphere.  We then detoured a bit around some of the other parts of Vegas before heading back to the Strip for the finish.  It was fun to run with my friend Laurie from high school.  Who would have ever though back then we’d be running a half marathon!! 

Laurie, Kris and I ran most of the race together.  When I stopped to stretch about mile 9.5 and we lost each other and Kris and I headed to the finish line.  The rest of our friends gathered at the finish line to cheer everyone on and even had homemade signs!!  It was great to see everyone waiting at the finish.  I’ve gotta say the finish line was a little bittersweet and emotional. 

  We waited for the rest of the finishers and then all hung out and then listened to the Bret Michael’s concert and cheered Ed on to his 1st Marathon finish.  It was good ending to a good race.  By the time the concert was over and we’d had some lunch I was exhausted so back to the room we went. 

After everyone was rested and showered it was time for more Vegas fun.  On the list was Red Square and the private Vodka Vault and frozen ice bar.  It was so much fun and we had a great dinner afterwards. 

After all the excitement of Sunday you would have though we’d sleep until noon on Monday – sadly that wasn’t the case.  Kris and I were up early so we decided to walk a bit and stretch our tired legs.  We had a nice brunch at NY NY and I won a little money on the slots   I like to gamble when I win!  Monday afternoon I headed to the spa for a much needed massage.  Ahhh – relaxing.  Monday night was our finale dress up dinner.  We had a most excellent dinner at Sage and then headed to the Ghost Bar (55 stories up) for a cocktail and stunning views of Vegas.  It was a good ending to a fun trip. 

Thank you to everyone who came to Vegas!  We had a great time and it made the last race very memorable

–Michelle

I remember waiting at the start line of Race #1 on a cold damp morning in Charleston, SC and thinking “what have I gotten myself into”?! I’d never done fundraising to this level before.  I’d never try to run this many races and this far in one year.  Now I was going to do both and write a blog about it for the world to see.  I was a bit nervous!!  Now 319 days later – 983 miles later – I’m heading to the last race. 

I cannot say Thank You enough to everyone who has helped me reach this monumental goal!  Stay tuned for a race update this weekend

THANK YOUI!!!!

Michelle

1. Your parents - For giving birth to you. Because if there is no them, there will not be you.
2. Your family – For being your closest kin in the world
3. Your friends – For being your companions in life
4. Sense of sight – For letting you see the colors of life
5. Sense of hearing - For letting you hear trickle of rain, the voices of your loved ones, and the harmonious chords of music
6. Sense of touch - For letting you feel the texture of your clothes, the breeze of the wind, the hands of your loved ones
7. Sense of smell – For letting you smell scented candles, perfumes, and beautiful flowers in your garden
8. Sense of taste – For letting you savor the sweetness of fruits, the saltiness of seawater, the sourness of pickles, the bitterness of bitter gourd, and the spiciness of chili
9. Your speech – For giving you the outlet to express yourself
10. Your heart – For pumping blood to all the parts of your body every second since you were born; for giving you the ability to feel
11. Your lungs – For letting you breathe so you can live
12. Your immune system – For fighting viruses that enter your body. For keeping you in the pink of your health so you can do the things you love.
13. Your hands – So you can type on your computer, flip the pages of books, and hold the hands of your loved ones
14. Your legs - For letting you walk, run, swim, play the sports you love, and curl up in the comfort of your seat
15. Your mind - For the ability to think, to store memories, and to create new solutions
16. Your good health – For enabling you to do what you want to do and for what you’re about to do in the future
17. Your school - For providing a environment conducive to learning and growing
18. Your teachers – For their dedication and for passing down knowledge to you
19. Tears – For helping you express your deepest emotions
20. Disappointment - So you know the things that matter to you most
21. Fears – So you know your opportunities for growth
22. Pain – For you to become a stronger person
23. Sadness – For you to appreciate the spectrum of human emotions
24. Happiness – For you to soak in the beauty of life
25. The Sun - For bringing in light and beauty to this world
26. Sunset – For a beautiful sight to end the day
27. Moon and Stars - For brightening up our night sky
28. Sunrise - For a beautiful sight to start the morning
29. Rain – For cooling you when it gets too warm and for making it comfy to sleep in on weekends
30. Snow – For making winter even more beautiful

31. Rainbows – For a beautiful sight to look forward to after rain
32. Oxygen - For making life possible
33. The earth – For creating the environment for life to begin
34. Mother nature - For covering our world in beauty
35. Animals – For adding to the diversity of life
36. Internet - For connecting you & me despite the physical space between us
37. Transport - For making it easier to commute from one place to another
38. Mobile phones – For making it easy to stay in touch with others
39. Computers – For making our lives more effective and efficient
40. Technology – For making impossible things possible
41. Movies – For providing a source of entertainment
42. Books – For adding wisdom into your life
43. Blogs – For connecting you with other like-minded people
44. Shoes – For protecting your feet when you are out
45. Time – For a system to organize yourself and keep track of activities
46. Your job – For giving you a source of living and for being a medium where you can add value to the world
47. Music - For lifting your spirits when you’re down and for filling your life with more love
48. Your bed - For you to sleep comfortably in every night
49. Your home - For a place you can call home
50. Your soul mate – For being the one who understands everything you’re going through
51. Your best friends – For being there for you whenever you need them
52. Your enemies – For helping you uncover your blind spots so you can become a better person
53. Kind strangers – For brightening up your days when you least expect it
54. Your mistakes - For helping you to improve and become better
55. Heartbreaks - For helping you mature and become a better person
56. Laughter - For serenading your life with joy
57. Love - For letting you feel what it means to truly be alive
58. Life’s challenges - For helping you grow and become who you are
59. Life - For giving you the chance to experience all that you’re experiencing, and will be experiencing in time to come

60.  Yourself – For being who you are and touching the world with your presence. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

–Michelle

Kris came home Tuesday night with a sore throat and went to bed early.  I will admit I didn’t feel bad for him or give him extra attention.  I just figured he was tired.  Monday night we were at FedEx field, in the cold rain, watching the Redskins attempt to play football. 

Wednesday morning Kris woke up and felt awful – cold, sneezing, even a little fever.  Uh oh!!  Normally a cold isn’t a big deal – some OJ and a day in bed and it’s all good.  However, we were supposed to be getting on a plane Wednesday night and heading to his mom’s for an early Thanksgiving.  After a lot of thought, we determined it was in everyone’s best interest that Kris didn’t get on that plane.  Delta should actually be thanking me instead of penalizing me for cancelling my flights  

Well that was Wednesday and now it’s Friday.  Kris is feeling better and spent the past two days quarantined to the bedroom.  In attempt to stay semi healthy, I set up camp on the pull out sofa in my office with the cats to keep me company.  I think tonight I’ll risk in and sleep in my real bed.  If I get sick less than a week before Thanksgiving and two weeks and two days before we leave for Vegas there might be some other wedding vows that come into consideration  

Have a great weekend everyone!

Michelle

Weather – 37 at starting time – clear and sunny; light winds

Miles ran this year – 949 (goal 1050)

Local races have not been kind to us this year.  Traffic was bad, of course, going down to Richmond and what should have been a 1.5 hour drive turned into 2.5 hours.  We headed right to packet pick up and made a quick loop around the expo before heading to the hotel.  I had forgotten I put “For My Mom” on the name part of my bib so seeing that was a nice surprise! 

The hotels for this race have been a bit of an issue.  The first hotel I booked for Saturday night instead of Friday night – oops – and of course, they were now sold out for Friday night.  After a bit of panicking I found another hotel downtown Richmond that was available – at twice the price!  Sigh.   But I wanted to be by the start/finish so I booked it.  Last weekend Kris noticed the hotel had been charged to the credit card – strange.  I called them to get the scoop – it was for a no show charge.  How could that be?!  Somehow they had keyed in the dates for Nov 1-2 instead of Nov 12-13.  Double sigh.  At that point, I had noticed the Omni now had availability which is where I had wanted to stay the whole time so I grabbed a room.  So after 2.5 hours in traffic and a race thru the expo we were really ready to check in – and eat!  We got our keys from the very nice front desk lady and headed up to the 19th floor to find our room.  We found it – two big double doors labeled Presidential Suite.  Hmm?!  Maybe booking at the last minute this was all they had left so in we went.  After a couple loops around the suite we noticed something missing – a bed!  However, there was a tiny one person cot set up in the corner of the room.  While I was on the phone calling the front desk Kris had to use the restroom.  He came running out stating “there’s someone’s stuff in there!” I promptly hung up on the front desk and we got the heck out of there.  The very nice front desk lady was suddenly not to nice stating “well that’s the room they booked you in”.  No – pretty sure I booked a room with a BED!  After a bit of a discussion we were moved to “the only room left” – another suite – this one complete with a pull out sofa.  I was not happy at this point, but I was also starving so we decided to make the best of our pull out sofa and go get dinner.  Dinner was great and I was hoping the spaghetti and meatballs would fuel a good run the next morning.  As far as a good night’s sleep – well that was not to be had. 

Our alarms went off at a very early 6am!  After getting dressed and stretching I figured it was time to eat something.  A bit of the conversation that followed:  Me to Kris – “where is the bagel/banana/peanut butter I brought?”  Kris – “I don’t know, didn’t you bring it in?”  Me to Kris – “No, you emptied the car while I was checking in”.  Kris – “well it’s not here”.  Sigh – no bagel/banana/peanut butter.  Luckily Kris was able to run run down to the Starbucks in the lobby and find a bagel and banana.

So finally the run!  We headed down to the start line which was a couple blocks from our hotel.  We met up with Kris’s co worker Val who was running her 1st half marathon!  She did awesome – beating her goal time by 15 minutes!  There were 4 waves to the start and I was in #2.  At 733am we were off.  The first 5 miles were pretty good.  I kept telling myself that nothing hurt and asking my mom to look down and give me speed   About mile 5.5 we entered Joseph Bryan Park.  I did not like the park.  The first part was a cobblestone’ish path that wasn’t pleasant to run on.  Each step was sending shooting pains thru my hips and legs.  The park was also where most of the hills were found.  Although they weren’t major hills at all I was mentally prepared for a pretty flat course so they were a bit discouraging.  Coming out of the park I was beat and my legs/hips were hurting. 

One of the funny signs on the course.

Kris was meeting me at mile 10 to run the last few miles with me so I just kept telling myself to get to 10.  Finally Mile 10 – and Kris!  He said I didn’t even smile when I saw him but I was happy in my head  

He had a little cup of Gatorade.  Yeah!!  By the way – I was still trying to finish in the ever elusive 2:00 mark.  I was spot on until the park and by the time I got to 10 miles I figured I was about 1:30 minutes off.  So Kris ran a bit ahead of me to try to push me and would circle back and tell me about the course ahead.  Actually I only head about 20% of what he was saying as I still had my iPod on.  He was entertaining though and doing his best to be encouraging.  I really tried to push it the last 1.5 miles and thought at the 12 mile mark we had made up enough time to make the 2:00 hour mark.  The last .25 was all downhill and Kris was running and yelling (in a nice way of course) for me to push it.  I swear I felt like my hips were going to snap in half but I was doing my desk to push it to the finish.  So are you ready for it – the finish time was………2 hours……..24 seconds. 

Not the goal time, but still a PR for me and I’ll take it.  I haven’t had a PR since May so it was nice and to have one at Race #11 of this year was extra nice.  Vegas is the next race and I’m going to totally relax on that one and have fun! 

I do want to wish Kris’s Aunt Letha a Very Very Happy 80th Birthday today!!  I hope I can still be as active as Letha when I’m 80 – she’s quite a remarkable woman. 

Michelle

Yesterday – Saturday, Nov 6th, 2010 – the last 10 mile run I will do as part of my training for this year. 

It’s hard to believe I’m starting to wind down the year.  My 11th race is Saturday in Richmond.  Three weeks after that we head to Las Vegas for Race #12!

I’ve been fortunate to feel pretty good most of the year.  However, the last month or so my hips have really been bothering me and my knee is starting to hurt again.  I really don’t want to make a visit to Dr. Kittredge this close to being done.  So my plan in getting ready for Richmond is to rest! I’m still going to be a couple runs this week, but not as much as was on my original training plan.  I don’t like to rest – I feel like I should be doing something or all my hours training will be wasted.  I know rest is important but sometimes it’s so hard to do!  I want to have a really good run in Richmond and I know if I feel like I felt yesterday that won’t be the case.

Something else that will hopefully help get me ready for Saturday is the massage I have scheduled for Wednesday night.  I cannot put into words how much I am looking forward to it!!   

On a random note – today was the 40th New York City Marathon!  In 1970, Fred Lebow organized the 1st NYC Marathon.  127 runners paid an entry fee of $1 to run 26.2 miles that looped several times thru Central Park.  55 runners crossed the finish line.  Today, the race is run thru all 5 NYC boroughs.  Runners must enter their names into a lottery to get into the race. If you are fortunate enough to have your name drawn it’s a $196 entry fee (plus the $11 processing fee to get your name into the lottery).  Last year 43,660 runners crossed the finish line.  Congratulations to Shalane Flanagan from the US who finished in 2nd place for the women.  It was her first marathon – quite a way to finish  

Have a great week!

–Michelle

The online link doesn’t compare to the “paper” version, but if you care to check it out here is the link:

http://www.runwashington.com/news/2991/

Have a great Friday!!! 
–Michelle