What would you do while you still could?

3 months ago I began a forced journey toward fitness. One of my best friends Christina asked me to join a booty boot camp with her. I made MANY excuses. It’s too expensive; who will watch my baby while Kyle is away? Christina went so far as to pay half of my fee for the boot camp. My brother JP babysat and my church and family kept encouraging me to stick with it.
After the first session of boot camp as I limped out feeling like death
Christina says “This is great training for the ALS Run in June!”
I say “Ya this is great training for the ALS WALK in June”
She says “You’re running this year”
Me (laughing) “I’m walking this year”
She “No you’re running”
We decided to run to and from an event that Saturday. I a grand total of 13 minutes and 1.5km I had a long way to go and only 9 weeks to get there. We did 8 weeks of booty boot camp twice a week. I ran twice a week and made sure to exercise 6 days a week. All the time the 8km run was looming.
As the run got closer, there began to be TV advertisements for the ALS run. AT the end of the ads it always asks the question “what would you do while you still could?’ the facts are that a person with ALS looses the use of their arms and legs after two years with the disease, and I have use of both.
The day of the run came faster than I thought it could. I barely slept the night before and had to call our Kyle’s mom Kim to help me to relax and focus on the right things.
We lead a church service at 8:30am and 156 people attended. Cesar preached about how God does not change and he led everyone in a prayer for salvation. One man prayed to receive Christ and spoke to Cesar after. I am sure Pastor Jesse and Jesus were watching and cheering. Pastor Jesse probably hosted the party in heaven afterwards then He and Jesus and Paul probably took on Moses and Noah and the ark angel Gabriel in a three on three-basketball tournament.
The walk started at 10 and our sane friends left us to enjoy the beautiful 5km walk. I started to feel sick. We began to run at 10:28. This was the moment we had been training for. Christine (sister) ran with me and my friend Marilynn Bartley. It was hot and hard. We got cramps and my legs felt like lead. I got to km 6 at the top of a brutal hill and I turned to Christine and said “I don’t think I can do this” she yelled back at me “YES YOU CAN!!!”
I just prayed and prayed then we were in sight of the finish line I saw so many green shirts the color for our team Jesse’s girls. Then as they saw us I heard all this yelling and screaming. They were cheering us in, Christine said “can you sprint?” I said, “I don’t have anything left.” Then I saw Kathy Morales standing at the finish line cheering and I thought about all the people I knew were praying for me. So I sprinted and crossed the finish line.
As happy as I am that I ran 8km it meant so much more to do it for a cause like ALS. My sister said it best she said, “were running for Pastor Jesse and living for Jesus”
Next year we hope to run again and raise more money but hopefully by next year they will have found the cure and we can just run in celebration.