Run for Katie

When we decided in my office one afternoon to do our Run for Katie, I thought it would just be a few of our friends who would run.  Never in my wildest imagination did I consider that someone I literally have never met would be willing to help our family.  However, that's exactly what happened.  There will never be a way for us to thank people who literally help us bring our child home to our family.  We will certainly try, but I don't know how you thank someone for that. 

Meet Misty, in her own words.

My name is Misty and I am a wife to Adam and a mother to Ella (nearly 7) and Elijah (2).   I'm a stay-at-home mom, a part-time radiography student at Vol State, a Girl Scout troop leader, and an avid runner.  I wasn't always a runner; in fact, until last year I had never even ran a mile before and had been obese most of my adult life.  It's very much a Forrest Gump story actually - one day I just started running!  Within six months I had lost 65 lbs. (over 1/3 of my body weight), lost 7 pant sizes, but most of all, learned more about myself that I'd learned in the previous twenty-eight years combined.  It was definitely the hardest and best year old my life. 

 

 

 

As if losing so much weight wasn't enough, I also discovered that I'm a fairly good runner!  Within six months of running, I had:

 

 

Ran my first 5k, coming in 3rd (out of 24 ) in my division, in 23:51

Ran my first 10K, coming in 2nd (out of 33) in my division, in 51:59

And I ran my first half - The Middle Half, coming in 10th (out of 163) in my division/top 15% overall, in 1:48:27

 

 

 

This year, having endured a major surgery and a tear in my achilles, I definitely won't be smashing any personal records,  Instead, I want to run for a cause.  I considered raising money for St. Jude's, but sleeping in shabby hotel rooms in Memphis before running a marathon the next day really isn't my thing.  I considered running for Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure as an honor to my mother, who is fighting hard every day with Stage 3 breast cancer; and it's not that I don't want to fund breast cancer research, but my efforts wouldn't be as apparent.  As a long time blog follower of Kim's, I was nothing shy of STOKED to see her newest fundraiser for that precious angel who waits for them on the other side of the world.  Finally, something I could do and witness firsthand the fruits of my fundraising labor!  One look at that sweet girl's face and I knew this was right up my alley!

 

 

 

I'm a good runner.  I'm a good mother.  I'm (sometimes!) a good wife.  But my goodness is a grain of sand compared to the goodness of the Simpson family and their  mission to adopt little Kate.  If running a marathon and raising money (or begging...whatever works) is what I can do to save her, I'm willing to run a thousand marathons!