Race

Asking for prayers!

Sunday Morning

Wakey wakey... 3:15 AM

A little food, a little coffee, and out the door by 4:15 AM to pick up my sister for our Med City Half Marathon adventure. She got her own “wakey wakey” call at 4:00 AM — “Marie, I’m on my way!”

We drove to Rochester, picked up our packets, sat in the car for a while, talked about life, the race, and honestly just enjoyed being together. Before we knew it, race time was here.

One of my favorite moments happened before we even started. My sister accidentally lined up in the 2-hour starting corral because she had no idea what it meant Since it was chip timing, we just stayed back and laughed about it.

Now I’ll be honest... she definitely did not train for this race. We both knew it. But she still wanted to do it, and that was all that mattered.

We started with some run/walk intervals, but before long we were mostly walking — and I was perfectly OK with that. We had a 4 hour and 20 minute cutoff and plenty of time. What ended up being so special was all the people we met along the way.

We listened to stories and reasons people signed up:

One man was out there because running helped him through depression.

One was out there to lose weight and feel better about himself.

One woman said she signed up because she was out at a bar and got challenged to do it

Others just wanted to prove something to themselves or simply have fun.

That’s what I love about races — everyone is carrying a different story.

Around mile 5 I realized I had made a huge mistake. I had two shirts and a long sleeve on expecting to run more than walk. Since my heart rate stayed so low, I was freezing. I started shivering, my fingers and lips were starting to turn a little blue, and on top of all that we heard thunder in the distance.

Then came a first in all my years of racing...

I picked up a sweatshirt someone had left on the side of the road Marie almost passed out she couldn’t believe it “No way your putting that on”

Yes... I smelled it first.

THANKFULLY it smelled like Downy.

So whoever owned that extra-large Nike sweatshirt and washed it with Downy... THANK YOU. You saved me. I wore that thing until mile 12 and looked like I was racing in a dress, but I did not care one bit

As the miles clicked by, we slowed from around a 14-minute pace to 17-minute miles. My sister was hurting and cramping badly around mile 11. At one point she got confused and forgot where she was, which honestly concerned me.

I kept reminding her:

"One foot in front of the other."

I kept her drinking Gatorade and just stayed beside her. We talked about stopping if she needed to because finishing only matters if you're OK.

Then we reached the finish line...

Only to find out they had run out of half marathon medals.

Yep... they handed us 5K medals.

I was absolutely livid because every athlete out there earned their finish, including the people behind us.

However, after sitting with it, I realized the medal really wasn't the best part of the day.

The best part was the miles.

The conversations.

The stories.

And the time with my sister.

It reminded me of being young and dragging my siblings out to the track to run with me. Now I get to watch them choose to do hard things, and I get the privilege of running beside them.

I've told both of my siblings this:

I don't care if we're first or last were crossing the same finish line as everyone else and still

getting the same medal... unless you're doing Med City Marathon as they hand us a 5K medal because they ran out of half marathon medals (Yes... an email has been sent. Mmmmmmmmmm.)

Every mile spent together is a blessing.

Little did we know how much those miles and moments would mean.

Tuesday Morning-

As I sit here writing this, I’m sitting beside my sister in the hospital, they found an aneurysm in her brain. It’s amazing how life can change in a matter of moments. One minute we’re laughing, walking miles together, crossing finish lines, and talking about life... and the next minute we’re sitting in a hospital room praying and waiting.

I’m thanking God that they found it before something happened.

Sometimes we get so caught up in things like medals, Marie Jones, drama, and little inconveniences that we forget what truly matters:

Time.

Time together.

Conversations.

Memories.

Love you, sister Marie Jones

Asking for prayers.

AKA Big

#SisterSquad