My mom photographed Ally and her family at the end of last year. Ally was only 5, born with cerebral palsy and had loving parents and an adorable little sister. Check them out here. A few weeks after my mom did the photos, Ally passed away.
When I heard her parents were creating a run in honor of Ally, to benefit "Ride to Walk", I knew exactly what my June run would be.
Ride to Walk is a therapeutic horseback riding program for children with special needs.
Check out their website to lend them a little support.
They are located off of 193 in Lincoln. I have been to the property many times before- to volunteer for the organization, help my mom take engagement photos, and even as a high school student building homes for the wood duck population.
The beautiful property
It was wonderful for me to be on the property on Saturday; reminded of all the reasons I love Lincoln as I ran through the hilly, dusty, rocky, grassy terrain intermingled with cement and road. (Yes I encountered all of those)
Now for the nuts and bolts of how I did:
the weather was great, maybe a little too windy, but I will take that over "I wanna die" heat. I started off really strong and maybe a little too fast, but I was pumped: I was so happy to be running this race, I was stoked to be in Lincoln and I had a killer song on my ipod. The course looped around the same path twice and I was regretting my speed a little bit the second time around. The tough part came as we made our way back to the entrance to the property. People cheered and I thought, "oh this must be the last 0.1 mile or so" Of course, I booked it, only to realize I had about 0.5 mile to go. I kept pushing thinking, "where is the end?" but I didn't want to stop because I knew I was almost there.
I was surprised when I saw my time- about 3 minuted longer than I assumed, but I got over it. It wasn't until I got home that night and saw an e-mail explaining that the course was about 0.3 miles longer than a 5K. It was nice to know I hadn't lost my mind and that I know my body and how fast it's going.
Our cool timing tracker...never seen one of these.
I posted more pics than i usually do because this race's cause was closer to my heart than most. Enjoy them, The race was so organized and the race packets were awesome: a cool shirt, lots of treats and all assembled in a Ziploc bag with our race numbers and safety pins. So mark your calendars for June 18th, 2010 for the 2nd annual Race for Ally. This time they're adding a 10K!
And what is this blog without a little food? They had these amazing scones after the race, so I posed with it and my medal; like the total dork that I am.
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