Already missing you all ...

The race ended three days ago, and every morning since then I've woken up with a smile on my face. I feel that I miss my teammates and I miss the camaraderie and the fire they light up my butt. It was sad to say good bye to them.

Don't get me wrong, doing the RTB is challenging and I was relieved to finish running my rotation ... and being on the Rosie Ruiz Fan Club team is like signing up for boot camp. You feel the pressure weeks before the race and you haven't even met half of your teammates yet. Let me add to Joe's Hard Truth blog that, they make you swear on the Bible, and this Bible consists of numbers not letters, it's a spreadsheet of each team member's projected running times and it is followed religiously! How many teams do this anyway?!?! God forbid if you should run a minute or two slower than the projected time that you gave at registration time. You start to wonder whether you should fake an injury and let someone else on the waiting list to cover for you. I mean it is the decent thing to do when you are on a team that cares this much.

The irony is that the relentless pursuit of achieving all our projected times is not about trying to win a prize, it's to make sure that we Reach the Beach early enough so that we have plenty of time to party as a full team and get some food. Fun, fun, fun IS the name of the game with the Rosie Ruiz Fan Club team; just look at all our smiling faces in the pictures. Thank you to Captain Erica, Matt and Chris for suppling all the play by play commentaries. You guys are awesome!

The toughest part of this race that I found was running up the 200-foot hills of New Hampshire in pitch darkness, sprinting at the very start of your run, and running the second and third legs with little recovery time in between. By the time I had to run my third leg, I was so tired and sleepy that I felt like bringing up because I was so scared that I couldn't finish it and I would let my team down. But I did it, I did it all! ... And it was an exhilarating feeling each time I crossed the finish line. Erica would say to me, "I have never seen anyone get so excited crossing the finish line." I feel that it's one thing to do your PB and it's another when your PB contributes to a team. It is so much more meaningful and then you really feel proud of yourself.

I believe that I'll always be smiling when I think about our race together. I definitely felt the benefits of being on a team of people with the gift of championing others to do their best. How often do you come across being in this situation? I know my honey feels this way too - he just doesn't know his limits :-) I want to thank you all for elevating me: Matt, Bruce, Nancy, Lisa, Taylor and Cara, Joe, Weldon, Chris, Judson and a special thanks to my beautiful friend Erica for always believing in me. It was a real pleasure and honour to be with you all this year. One last thing, I like our Bible. What a great structure! Amen.