This is going to be somewhat personal, a little mushy, and definately a violation of Jen's blogging rules for her site.  Sorry Jen!

I had to hack into Jen's Blogger account and post to her site.  I want everyone in Jen's blogosphere to know how proud I am of her!  This morning Jen finished her first half-marathon.  To make this even more amazing, you should know that she injured her foot a couple of weeks ago and has been struggling with some very painful Plantar Fasciitis.  She took a break from training two weeks ago, and on Wednesday she went out to test the injury on a run.  After a very painful mile, she decided she wasn't going to attempt the half-marathon on Saturday.  This REALLY bummed her out, as she had spent the entire summer training for this event.

However, on Friday she decided she would wrap her foot and give it her best shot!

My wife is tough!  13 miles is a LOOOONNNNGGGG way.  Rachael, Megan, Ethan, and I decided we would drive the van along the route so we could cheer her on.  I was really amazed at how well she did.  At the half-way point, she ran up and gave the girls a high-five and a big smile, BUT, I could tell from the look in her face that she was in a lot of pain.

At about 10 miles, she started to show the pain in her face, and I started to worry.  She slowed her pace slightly, and dropped back from her running partners.  When she passed us at mile 11.5, she had quite the grimace ... both Rachael and Megan both commented that they were worried about her.  They were both getting upset ... but she kept going.

She ended up finishing the entire half-marathon without walking.  I couldn't believe it ... since she had just planned to start the race, send her training partners off to a good start, and quit after a mile or two.

After the race I helped her to the van.  She pulled her shoe off, unwrapped her foot, and exposed a huge protrusion from the bottom middle of her foot.  Her fascia tendons were so swollen that it looked like someone had shoved a marble under the skin.  It looked really bad ... 

I'm so proud of you Jen!  You are such a great example to our children!  Our two young daugters both saw a different side of their Mom today ...

Way to go!

Love,

Derrick