Save the Tatas - Race for the Cure!

I wanted to post about this earlier, but I was waiting on some pictures from my friend. Now that I have them, here I go. On Oct. 25th I got to do the coolest thing and participate in the Race for the Cure for breast cancer. It was really an amazing experience. Our group was a bunch of LDS women from the area (seen below). We have all been really touched by our friend Cheri Sharp who has been battling breast cancer this year. She found out she had breast cancer while pregnant with her 4th child. She's only 32. (I hope I got that right Cheri). Anyway, her courage and strength has inspired everyone that surrounds her. Luckily, she did remarkably well and is cancer free and just finishing up with a ton of radiation right now. On top of that, my best friend Elizabeth Cluff that I have been friends with for 20 years was diagnosed with breast cancer in October at age 37. She's at the beginning of her battle. As with Cheri, I am awed at her wonderful attitude and amazing strength. These are women to look up too. I love her so much. So, when Patty Michaelis put this team together, I just HAD to be on it. It is just crazy how many people I know have been affected by this horrible disease. It made me feel an urgency to try to do SOMETHING.

The two women in pink above are our LDS breast cancer survivors. Cindy Forsyth is to the left, and Cheri Sharp is in the center. Do you see her smile? That's what I'm talking about. She's wonderful!Here I am in front of the pink horse with the names of all the women I was running for. Now, another cool thing about this race was the involvement of the community. The race was a 5k that went behind a shopping center and into a neighborhood in Germantown (the city next door). Turns out, the neighborhood got completely into this. We had cheerleaders and a band from the local high school rooting us on. As we went through the neighborhoods, many houses were all decorated in support of the race. There was pink everywhere. It was SO cool. There were pink flags, pink flamingos, even pink Halloween decorations. The house with the Halloween decorations had pink spider webs and pink spiders with pink ghosts and a sign that said, "Save the BOOOBS!" The picture above is a family that dressed up like the rock group KISS that had a sign saying, "KISS breast cancer goodbye!" I thought that was so cool.

This is kind of hard to see, but this guy was dressed up like Elvis and had a huge pink ribbon for breast cancer on his roof top. He was doing his Elvis moves and cheering us on. Other neighbors just sat out on their lawn chairs and clapped for us. One house had the music from the movie "Rocky" playing to motivate us. Another house even had a sign that said, "Save second base!" I thought that was hilarious. I tell ya, it was such a cool experience. Seeing all the women in pink that are survivors gives you hope for a cure and motivates to try to take care of yourself. Here are my friends Vickie Mecham and JoAnn Briscoe who stuck by me through the race and weaving in and out of the other racers because I wanted to go faster. They were troopers! This was actually the end of the race, but we were accidentally standing under the wrong sign. I highly recommend doing the Race for the Cure if you ever get a chance. I know I'm addicted.