I did finish the National Breast Cancer Marathon on February 13, 2011. Couch to the finish line in less than 7 months. Okay, so it took me 6 hours and 41 minutes. I was 62! I hadn't been exercising for months. Basically a couch potato, thirty pounds overweight. In May, Florida is hot and humid, but when my sister-in-law shared her secret, that she was planning to train for a marathon in Jacksonville, it stuck with me. She didn't know that In my unwritten, impossible-things-I’d-like-to-do bucket list, running a marathon was in the top ten. It was behind weighing 120 again and speaking understandable Spanish.

A month later, I was at my highest weight EVER (including my last pregnancy, where I laid in bed and ate for 2 ½ months). While visiting friends in Idaho, the altitude and hills were killing me. My goal to live to 93 wasn’t looking so good, so I took my SIL's advice and joined the Galloway Marathon training program. I started the run-walk program in the end of July 2010.

Do I have special abilities that allowed me to accomplish this?  NO!

Not even close. I didn’t run track in high school. I’m not fast. Or sleek.

So how does an average, over 60, overweight grandmother get through the 26.2 mile run to the finish line?

One step at a time.

It turned out to be the best thing I could have done. I made friends with wonderful, energetic, supportive women and men of all shapes and sizes. And I did it. I walked and ran 26.2 miles. Twice. Once in practice and again a month later in the Breast Cancer Marathon.

Oh- another nice side effect-I raised almost $2000 for the cause!