The end is in sight...

Hard to believe that this morning was our last weekend training run before the big day. It's been quite the journey, training for this marathon, and incredible to believe that next Sunday is THE day. The thought of participating in a marathon was one that had merely crossed my mind, without much contemplation a few years ago--when my dear sister trained and completed hers (she did the Hawaii marathon with the Arthritis Foundation). Anyway, while I admired her dedication and determination to complete such a feat, I honestly thought she, and the rest of the runners were out of their mind. I was a runner in school, on the long distance team at that, but 26.2miles?? that was more distance than I could wrap my mind around. I was that person that just watches, and while admiring the runners' accomplishment, I would say "Oh, I would never do that..." Yes, that was me, still on Feb 13th this year. And then the life wrenching twist in our lives--finding out about Katherine's illness. It was like we were picked up and thrust into a whirlwind--still kinda feels that way somedays, but we've adjusted to this fight. Feb 14th still seems unreal--I think back and still can't figure out how we managed to get through it. The emotional turmoil we were thrust into is like nothing else I had ever experienced. With the news came the fears. Cancer? Cancer, in my mind, was terminal--I knew nothing else. Horrible thoughts filled my mind, unthinkable feelings filled my heart and as the days went by I seemed to numb up to what was going on in our family. And then, that first dose of chemo that I saw Katherine receive in the hospital brought me to my knees all over again. I cried, and I cried, and I hurt again. It was so real, this was really happening. The nurse came in wearing a special gown and special gloves to protect her hands from this drug that she so calmly injected into our baby girl. And I knew that was only the beginning. We had a long road ahead of us. Katherine would have to endure over 2 years of this treatment, and our attitude had to change. We had to come to grips with this and we had to be strong for each other, but most importantly for Katherine. We prayed for strength. We prayed for endurance. We prayed for wisdom. We prayed for understanding, and peace. We prayed and prayed and prayed. And we continue to pray ceaselessly, because we can't do this alone. To you, our regular blog readers, THANK YOU for YOUR prayers. Thank you for your continued support through this. For caring enough to come back time after time to read our blog, to stay up to date with Katherine's progress and to find out any specific prayer requests that we may have.

So, in the midst of our own education about Katherine's illness, I kept coming back to the LLS and the fundraising opportunities. I found myself pondering the thought of training for a marathon. Suddenly, 26.2 miles didn't seem impossible. In fact, it seemed insignificant compared to the journey ahead. Dan and I both committed to doing this. I signed up with the LLS to raise the funds for the foundation and we've been training for the last 16 weeks or so. We've certainly logged in the miles, each one of us has a couple hundred miles under our belts--or is that shoes? :) and while it's been fun training, we are both anxiously waiting to finally cross that finish line. Neither one of us could have done this and be where we are at without you. So, THANK YOU!! Thank you for your prayerful support and for your financial support towards my fundraiser.

So, next Sunday we will be two people in the middle of a mass of runners--specifically 30K runners. Yep, you read right. The race was closed at 30,000 people. It will begin at 7:25 with wheelchair participants taking off. Five minutes later, at 7:30 they will begin the wave start for the runners. There will be 30 "corral" groups, with 1000 participants each that will be released every 15 seconds or so. Our corral grouping was determined by the estimated elapse running time we put on our form. We estimated about 4:30 hours, which happens to be average time for this event, so we're in Corral 16, smack in the middle of the sea of people. There will be 14,000 people in front and 14,000 people behind our group. I don't think I've ever been in the middle of such a large group, so I'm a bit nervous about it.

• Please pray for us, as we are getting nervous and anxious.
• Please pray that we all stay healthy, through this next week especially.
• Please pray for our travels. We will be driving to my parents, and then on to San Antonio.
• Please pray for the kids. The plan is to leave Joshua with my parents overnight, and take Kateli with us. We couldn't NOT have kateli at the finish line so she will be hanging out with Tia Marta during the event and hopefully be at the finish to greet us.
• Please pray for our bodies to stay strong, and in one piece before, during and after the event.
• Please pray for quick recoveries from the run.