Running for Adria

The sound of the alarm came too early last Sunday morning. It was still dark outside, and I was tempted to roll over and ignore it. But I had plans that morning. Plans to run.

I rolled out of bed, gathered my hair in a pony-tail, pulled on my purple Nike spandex capris, and grabbed a banana, energy bar, water, and gatorade. Time to hit the road. Oh wait, I need my sneakers.

The house was quiet as I left to get in the car and head toward the beach.

It's been a while since I've been driving down the road just after 5 a.m. (how do people do that every day?) There was just a hint of color peaking above the trees.

As I munched on my energy bar, I soon began to enjoy the stillness and beauty of Delaware at this hour on my 40 minute ride East.

• The gentle morning mist that hovered just above the fields of soy beans 
• The endless acres of corn stalks soaking up the morning dew
• The farmhouses in the country and the hushed historic homes lining the streets of small towns

The landscape took on an almost romantic appearance as the sky became more pink and filled with light as I traveled toward the ocean. When I see the beauty in creation like this, it reminds me that God is putting on a special show for us each and every morning.

My peaceful ride ended abruptly, as I made a necessary stop at a Wawa gas station that was already filled with people by 6 a.m. that weekend morning...tourists.

Minutes later, I was stretching and ready to meet up with a running group. I had not run with this group in years, but two of the six runners were my coaches/support team from when I trained for my first and only full marathon (26.2 miles) in 2007. They are all training for full marathons, but I'm going to stick with the half marathon this time...running 13.1 miles is much more manageable! There's something about running 26 miles that makes you feel like you just might die...and yet it's rather rewarding.

By the time they came jogging toward me, they had already put in 6 miles and were planning to run 16. I've been running a lot more often this year, but the most I've done at once is just over 5 miles, so my goal was to run 8 to 10 miles on that Sunday morning (just over a week ago).

It was great to see coach Dan, who is really the one that guided me and several other women through training for our first marathon. He's over 60 years old and still covers many miles on the road every week, and I think he runs at least 1 or 2 marathons every year!

After some quick introductions during their Gatorade stop, we were running. We ran through impressive housing developments that are rapidly growing, a heavily wooded trail, briefly along a busy road, and eventually down to the bustling boardwalk with the sun shining above the ocean beside us. Mile after mile we ran, taking some walk breaks and drink breaks. We weren't trying to break any records for speed, we were just covering the miles. Finally, around 9 a.m. we were sweaty and tired, but I had run 10 miles that morning. Woohoo! I felt surprisingly good for not having run that kind of distance in more than two years. But then, the others had run 16 miles that day. Much more impressive.

About 4 miles into my 10 mile run last Sunday...The rest of our group ran 16 miles that day!

We ran past soy bean fields and a dairy farm...

And watched the sun rising above the Atlantic Ocean as we ran our final few miles along the Rehoboth boardwalk. 

It helps so much on those long runs to have people with you. To keep each other motivated and keep going.

The only down side of my early morning Sunday run was that I didn't get home until 10 a.m., which left very little time before I had to be to work at 11 a.m. Thank you, Daddy, for enduring a long day for me!

The last time I ran more than 10 miles was in May 2012 when I completed the Indy 500 Mini-Marathon with over 30,000 other participants running through the streets of Indianapolis and the famous race track - it's the nation's largest half-marathon!

Since then, I've wanted to do another big race, but a lot has happened - not the least of which was moving twice. Now that life is settling into more of a steady rhythm, I decided it's time to run again. Not just 5K runs, but the more serious stuff. And I found the perfect race to run.

The national Spina Bifida Association has an athletic program called Team Spina Bifida that encourages people to participate in endurance events to RAISE FUNDS and AWARENESS for spina bifida. For very obvious reasons, this struck a cord with me and I became excited about the opportunity to run a half-marathon again AND do it for my little girl! Adria's spina bifida limits the extent that she can run, but she has enjoyed watching me participate in a few 5K races. She's even asked to run along with me.

Running for our little Adria!

My hope and prayer is that someday, she and I will run a race together. We don't need to race to win, we can run to finish strong!

I have joined Team Spina Bifida and will be running the Rock 'n Roll Half-Marathon in Savannah, Georgia on November 8, 2014.

The training is underway, and I have committed to raise at least $500 for the Spina Bifida Association. We will be covering our own travel and accamodation expenses, so that the majority of these funds go directly to the association. Plus, we'll make a little family vacation out of it!

So, as the world of social media is currently flooded with the #IceBucketChallenge for ALS, if you find that you don't want to dump ice water on your head and would like to donate to a good cause - please consider donating to my fundraiser for Team Spina Bifida!

You can visit my personal page to make a Donation - www.teamspinabifida.org/savannah/adria

Thank you in advance for your support!