run, rest, eat, bitch, buy things, cross-train, blog, repeat.

Friday, August 15, 2014

IM Arizona 2014

Did that title get your attention? Nope, I'm not doing an Ironman. But, I'd like to do a little post about a friend who is...

Liz and I New Years Eve 2012
(and now I miss my shorter hair).

Liz and I met at a Strider's Training run a few years ago. We were both waiting for rides (It was the Kroger to Kroger Run) and we struck up a conversation about what we were training for, etc. We ended up running together on another training run later on and we've been pals/running buddies ever since.

Here we are at 6am in our hotel room in Chicago
before the shit show that turned into The Chicago Marathon 2011.
(I'm glad she got the memo about the hand on the hip pose).

Two years ago, I got a text from her, I believe it was on a Friday, because when I initially saw her name pop up on my phone, I assumed she was asking about doing a training run together that weekend. Unfortunately, that was not the case. She had been out for her regular weekday morning run through downtown Nashville and she had been struck by a car. She was okay, in that she was ALIVE and thankfully hadn't broken anything. But, she ended up suffering damage to her knee that required surgery and a year worth of physical therapy. All because a driver failed to look before turning. The accident was not her fault. She had the right of way.

Now, Liz is like me and the rest of us runners out there. She doesn't just run for exercise... she runs for her general well-being, for her sanity, as a stress reliever... and all that was essentially taken away from her for about a year. She stayed as active as she could with lots of time in the pool. When she finally got the okay to start running more, she decided that she wanted to give the triathlon world a try. 

She signed up to do a half ironman in May of this year. She trained hard for it, and showed up the weekend for the race and the weather was bad and they ended up cancelling the swim portion. Ugh! So frustrating. She signed up for another one in July that involved a freshwater swim and rocked the shit out of it a month ago.

After that, she signed up to run for Team Smiletrain at the Arizona IM this November.

Smiletrain is an organization that facilitates repairing cleft lips and palates for children internationally.



From their website: Millions of children in developing countries with unrepaired clefts live in shame, but more importantly, have difficulty eating, breathing and speaking. Cleft repair surgery is simple, and the transformation is immediate. Our sustainable model provides training and funding to empower local doctors in 85+ developing countries to provide 100%-free cleft repair surgery in their communities. 

So, here's the pitch. I've donated and I'm asking you to donate on behalf of my friend Liz who has battled back from GETTING HIT BY A CAR to now training for an Ironman. It's a great charity and I would be so appreciative of any support you can throw their way. And if you aren't in a position to donate, or just don't want to... then, please, at the very least... be extra careful driving and running. It DOES happen and can happen to you or someone you care about.

(click the Support Elizabeth link under her picture).

Thanks and have a great weekend!

2 comments:

Gracie said...

Wow, if that's not impressive I don't know what is. I can't imagine the struggle of returning to running after complex surgery for something so unfair! Poor thing. I'm glad she's able to make a comeback, and to support a good cause at the same time.

Amy said...

Right??? Amazing!