Well, 2012 has started out to be a pretty good year for the Parks family. Jamie's running streak hit the 20-year mark on 1/28 and Annalyn's is over 3 1/2 years now. We got our reinforced racing chair back from A Step Ahead Prosthetics and Orthotics in February and have already put nearly 250 miles on it this year. A lot of tha tis due to the great winter we had where it hardly snowed at all (I think I shoveled TWICE) and temps were way above normal.

Annalyn has just completed her 7th straight quarter of getting Straight A's at Grissom Middle School. This qualifies her for induction into the National Junior Honor Society. WTG, Annalyn!

The 3 of us performed in the Eagle Rock Church reprisal of their original musical, "By Faith." Jamie played Pharaoh in a very funny scene where Joseph interprets his dreams and Lynn and Annalyn were both priestesses, except when Annalyn was playing Miriam the sister of Moses in the scene where Moses is found floating down the Nile River in a basket.

Here are the race recaps so far for 2012 in reverse order.

4/7 was the Chocolate Rabbit Chase 5K in Palos Heights. Weather wasn't great but not too bad. 40 but sunny with no wind. The gun went off and we got off the line OK. Just as I got some clear space on the left to move around people, a guy cut behind me and clipped my foot. I would have fallen if I didn't have the racing chair to hold onto. I started out maybe a bit too fast (6:16 1st mile). The course was flatter at the beginning and Mile 2 was in 6:29. We hit some considerable hills towards the end and mile 3 was 6:38. The last 1/10 of a mile was all uphill and we got passed by 3 or 4 people. That took us 48 seconds and we hit the line in 20:13. I was hoping to break 20 but was satisfied because of the way the course was. Annalyn was not on a good day because she finished in 27:53. We got the results printouts and Annalyn was 4th of 29 in her group and 181st overall of 601 (still top 30%). We were 15th overall and 1st in our group.

3/31 was the Fast Cat 5K, 10K and 2 X 5K Relay at Plainfield North High School. It was 39 and cloudy with a little breeze. We got there by 7:40 and went in for our race packets. Annalyn's Cross-Country coach Pauline Luttrell and her husband Mark were there running the Husband/Wife Relay. I had a feeling it wasn't the most organized race (this was the first year for it) when I couldn't get a straight answer from anyone about the relay handoff area. I was told the wrong start line by about 3 people too. We talked with the Luttrells before the race and then went to the start. Pauline was running first for them and Mark second. The race started a few minutes late. We got off the line OK but the first turn was narrow with cones across the road. I just went between cones to avoid hitting anyone. We got out on the road and tried to settle into a good pace. I couldn't get a good idea because the 1-mile mark cone had been knocked over. We went into a subdivision and then onto a scenic bike path. I saw Mile 2 and we hit that in 13:11. Not very fast. I just tried to hold a fast pace to the finish and I grabbed the popsicle stick that we had to hand off to Annalyn. We handed off and hit the finish in 20:47. I was hoping for closer to 20 but we haven't done a lot of speedwork on shorter distances this year. Annalyn took off and I tried getting feeling back into my fingers. We waited outside and saw Pauline Luttrell come in and hand off to Mark. Shannon came through a few minutes later on her first of 2 laps (she was doing the 10K). I got the camera out and waited for Annalyn to come in. I missed Mark Luttrell finishing but saw Annalyn as she came towards the finish. I got a picture of her about 50 yards from the finish and another as she hit the line. Our total time was 46:45 so she ran 25:58 according to that. A little off what we thought she might do but again, the first 5K of the season is always hard to predict. I was OK with how she did. We talked to Pauline again for a few minutes and then she and Mark had to leave. We waited outside for Shannon and I got 2 pictures of her coming in to the finish. She hit the line in a little over 55 minutes. We stayed for awards which were all screwed up. They only had the overall winners in the 5k, 10K and relay. No age or division breakdowns. I found out later that we won the Parent/Child division and the Luttrells were 2nd in the Husband/Wife division. Shannon came in 4th in her group for the 10K.

3/11 was the Running O' The Green 8K in our hometown of Tinley Park. It started and finished at the Recreation Center. We got to the start and said hi to a few people. They started a few minutes late and it was cold waiting at the start in my shorts. Actually, my worst fear was that my fingers would freeze. Annalyn and Shannon started right behind us and the gun finally went off. We got off the line OK and I tried to settle into a comfortable but fast pace. I couldn't really tell how fast we were going until we hit the first mile. It was 6:47. That was good and a bit faster than I was hoping for. Mile 2 had the worst of the hills and we did that one in 7:07. Still under 7:00 pace and I was feeling pretty good. We turned back into the neighborhood and did the last hill there and coming down the other side, I picked it up and we did 6:47 again for mile 3. Mile 4 was pretty flat and I was just trying to pick off runners and not get passed. I was hoping that Gil Hannon wouldn't pass me but I wasn't sure if he was way ahead of us either. We did mile 4 in 6:50 and made the turn by St. Stephen's back onto 175th Street. This was where I told Annalyn to start picking it up if she felt good. So I did the same. We passed a couple of guys who looked like they might be in our group. Onto the path and up the last big hill. No way we could catch the next runner in front of us but I wasn't looking behind me either. Good thing because there was a group that was on our heels and nearly caught us. A lot of people were cheering for us as we came in and no one caught us. I saw the clock still in the 33s as we came to the finish. Sweet! My goal was to break 35 and we hit the line in 33:53! Only 20 seconds off our time from 2 years ago and over 3:00 ahead of last year. We saw Gil Hannon and he said that he finished in the group just behind us. Cool. Better chance of us catching an age group award now (he's 50). I got the camera and waited for the girls. Soon after, we saw Annalyn coming around the corner. YES!!! I took her picture coming up to the finish and then as she went by the clock. She finished in 41:45, A NEW PR for that race. Then just a minute later, Shannon came in and finished in 42:48, a PR for her!!  Annalyn was 164th Overall of 661 (top 25%) and 6th of 24 in her age group. Shannon was 193rd Overall (top 29%) and 5th of 16 in her group. We were 27th Overall (top 4%) and FIRST in our group. Yeah baby! I found out later that Gil Hannon was 7 seconds behind us but came in THIRD in our group. There were 3 other finishers within 7 seconds of us and two were in our age group. Whew!

The final totals are in for the 2011 running and racing season. For Lynn and Jamie, 2011 wasn't a great season, mostly because of Jamie's injury problems. A Sciatic Nerve problem cost him fitness and training time in the spring and just two days after he was able to race pain-free, he developed Plantar Fasciitis in his left foot. He continued to run to keep his running streak alive but changed the way he landed on that foot to minimize the pain. Ultimately, that caused a stress fracture in the foot which killed the fitness and training for the rest of the year. We did win an age group award at one race, the Stars & Stripes 5K in our hometown of Tinley Park on the 4th of July. After averaging around 15 races a year for the last 16 years, Lynn and Jamie only competed in 5 this year. They did two 5Ks, an 8K, a 1/2 marathon and the Ragnar Madison-Chicago 200-mile race. In that, they were part of a 12-person team that included their daughter, Annalyn, Jamie's sister Jodi and niece Shannon and 8 other friends. Total miles run by Jamie in 2011 were 1,398. That's 655 fewer than 2010 because of the injuries. Lynn and Jamie did 1032, 611 less than last year. We also retired the racing chair built for us in 2008 by A Step Ahead Prosthetics and Orthotics of Hicksville, NY. We ran 52 races on 4,839 miles with that chair since February of 2008. After snapping the frame 3 times and getting it re-welded, it was beyond repair. Our friends at A Step Ahead have graciously agreed to replace the chair with a new one for next season. SWEET!

Annalyn had a much better year with her running. She competed in track and cross-country for Grissom Middle School which helped her greatly increase her speed. She ran in 6 races. Four 5Ks, an 8K and the Ragnar Madison-Chicago 200-mile race. She lowered her 5K PR from 26:55 to 24:32 and set new best times at 1, 2 and 3 miles. For the year, she ran 618.8 miles.

First race of the season for the three of us is the Runnin' O' The Green 8K at the Bettenhausen Rec Center in our hometown of Tinley Park on March 11th.

Annalyn is on the High Honor Roll at Grissom Middle School for the 6th straight quarter!!! She also has found some new speed in her legs, setting new PRs for 3 miles on our neighborhood course (23:33) and for a 5K race (24:32).

Here are the race reports for the end of the season.

11/19 was Annalyn's last race of the season. It was the Orland Hills Turkey Trot 5K. Weather was good, 49 and cloudy with a little breeze. Annalyn's 16-year-old cousin, Shannon was racing too. I took a picture of the girls at the start. I got the camcorder going and they were off. I taped them going by and then we walked over to the point on the course where it went by the ball fields near the Rec Center. This was maybe 2 1/4 miles into the race. We were close enough to the finish where we could get there before Annalyn once we saw her. We waited and watched the runners come by. Our neighbor Mark Reilly was 4th (and finished 4th) overall. Mark Luttrell (husband of Annalyn's cross-country coach Pauline Luttrell) was about 7th. He was running his second race in an hour. He did the Every Step Counts 5K in Tinley at 9 and finished 3rd overall. Nuts. The Tesher girls (who Annalyn has run cross-country with) were 3rd and 4th about a minute ahead of Pauline Luttrell. Not long after that, church friend Briana Watson came by and maybe 50 yards behind her was Annalyn. I yelled to her that she could catch Briana but I wasn't serious. We waited another couple of minutes until Shannon came by. Then we went to the finish. We found a good spot to watch them come in. Just before the 3-mile mark near where they turn in off 167th, I saw Briana running with a smaller person. It was Annalyn! She actually caught Briana, a varsity cross-country runner from Lockport High School. We were going nuts. We yelled for them as they came in and they hit the line together in 24:32. Holy cow! That a 93 second PR for Annalyn! And 2:23 better than last year at the same race. Amazing! We waited for Shannon and she ran her 2nd best ever 5K, 26:25.

11/13 was the Tinley Turkey Trot 5K and Lynn and Jamie's last race of the season. They had a new course for this year. I got the chair together and we headed to the start. The gun went off and we got caught up in some of the little kids that were by the start line. We got free space by the first turn. I felt winded but tried to find a rhythm. I didn't like the new course at all. The old 2-lap course was easier mentally because we knew every turn. We hit Mile 1 in 6:31. Faster than I thought we'd do. I was hoping we could keep this pace but that didn't happen. Mile 2 was 6:49 and I was feeling the effects of not racing for 4 months. The last stretch down 171st was longer this year and it felt like it. I normally would try to kick it in to the finish but I had nothing left. We hit the line in 21:06, nearly 2:00 off of last year. That sucked. We turned around to look for Annalyn and walked back down the course a bit until we saw her. We ran in the last 50 yards or so with her and she hit the line in 26:30. She missed her PR by 25 seconds but set a new best time for this course by 29. On a day when the wind probably cost her 30 seconds, she did fantastic. We waited and watched for Shannon. She came in a couple of minutes later in 28:26. We all got together to talk about the race. As we headed towards the food, we saw our 9-year-old next-door-neighbor Erin Jaskierski come in. In her first ever 5K, she ran 31:11. Wow! They had results posted so we checked ours and none of us won anything in our age groups. We were 5th, Annalyn was 6th and Shannon was 13th.

On 9/25, the 3 of us were featured on Nippon TV in Japan in a show called "World's Greatest Heroes."

Annalyn wrapped up another season of running cross-country with Grissom Middle School. Her times have dropped steadily throughout the season. Last year, she only ran under 18:00 ONE time the entire season. This year she did it SIX times in the 7 races she ran, with three of those going under 17:00. Her current best time is 16:38.

This has been a challenging year to say the least. It started out with Jamie struggling with a Sciatic Nerve problem for the first 5 months, Lynn falling and spraining her shoulder, Jamie having TWO kidney infections and Walking Pneumonia and then on July 6th Jamie developed Plantar Fasciitis in his left foot. He had it in his RIGHT foot 6 years ago so he knew the symptoms right away. He kept running and working every day (although cut it down to a mile a day to keep his streak alive). The pain in his heel area caused Jamie to put more weight on the top of his foot while running and walking his mail route and subsequently, he developed a stress fracture in the top of the same foot. Not good. He had worked for two weeks with the stress fracture before he saw the Podiatrist and she put him in an air-filled walking boot that he had to wear at all times apart from showering. His running streak seemed to be over. Amazingly, the day he got the "boot," the pain in the top of the foot went away. Jamie decided that if he could run with no pain where the stress fracture was, that he'd try to keep the streak alive. At this point, it had been 19 1/2 years since he had missed a day of running. The pain never returned. 6 weeks of staying off the job and not being on his feet for 8 hours a day did a great part in the healing process too. He had new custom-fitted orthotics made and they played a big part in his recovery.

We did have one incredible piece of good news, though. Annalyn accepted Jesus into her heart in early March and took her First Communion at Eagle Rock on 3/27. That really makes all of the "lousy" stuff seem trivial. She was baptized on June 26th at the Eagle Rock Baptism/Picnic. 

Annalyn turned 12 on 8/23. The next day, she started 7th Grade at Grissom Middle School. Gotta figure out how to slow down time. It's going by WAY too fast.

Annalyn had a summer trip to California from 7/21-8/8. She flew out there by herself. There was quite a bit of anxiety on her part and ours but everything went smoothly. She stayed with Jamie's sister, Jodi, and her family in San Jose along with her cousin, Shannon, who had gone there a few weeks earlier. They went to Six Flags, did the Urban Dare Adventure Race, Hollywood (Walk of Fame, bus tour and visiting our friends at LMNO Productions. They produced "Marathon Love"), Los Angeles (Santa Monica Pier and the X Games) and Seattle (Space Needle, Hydroplane races).

7/4 was the Annual Stars & Stripes 5K in our hometown of Tinley Park. It stars just a few blocks from home so we can walk there. Weather was tolerable. 73 but the sun was beating down. We lined up and the gun went off. We got off the line OK but from the start, I didn't feel really strong. My leg didn't hurt but the lack of speedwork in preparation really showed. We hit the first mile in 6:15. I was happy with that but I knew I couldn't go any faster. Mile 2 was in 6:20 and I was dreading the hills at the reservoir. I jumped the curb OK with the racing chair but the hills were rough as usual. Mile 3 was 6:44 and we did :37 for the last .1 to the finish. Total time was 19:56. I was hoping to break 20:00 so I was satisfied with our result. I brought the camera with to get a picture of Annalyn when she crossed the line. The clock ticked past her 5K PR but I figured that the sun played a part in that. Then I saw her coming in and got her crossing the line in 27:55. Not bad considering the conditions. She said that she lost maybe 30 seconds when she missed grabbing a cup of water at Mile 2 and went back to get one. Still that's her 3rd best 5K and her best time at this race. We went to where they had the results posted and saw that we were 27th Overall of 702 finishers and got 3rd in our age group. Annalyn was 274th and 11th in hers.

On June 10th & 11th, we did the Ragnar Madison, Wisconsin to Chicago Relay Race. 197.3 miles. We had 12 runners on our team (really 13 because Lynn and I counted as one). Annalyn was our leadoff runner and we were Runner #12 so we got to hand off to her on her 2nd and 3rd relays. Each runner had to do 3 legs of the race with most legs between 3 and 8 miles. Our niece, Shannon, and Jamie's sister, Jodi, were also on the team. A family friend, Chrissy Johns ran with us and brought along a friend of hers, Laura Coste. The son of some of our running friends, Tyler Thelen, also joined us as well as some friends from church, Briana Watson, Tommy Merkle and Greg Targosz. Greg drafted two of his co-workers from Molex, Andy Selby and Herman Beck to join us. What follows are the journal entries that I made from those two days.

RAGNAR Day!

Up at 3:40. That's right, 3:40. First thing I did was check the radar. Looked REALLY bad. Rain as far as Iowa and north into Wisconsin. We got up and dressed and Jodi and Aaron showed up and helped us get everything in the van. We left and picked up Tyler Thelen. His Mom, Valerie came out and said hi. We left and went to my Mom's. The rest of the team was there. Andy, Chrissy, Laura, Tommy, Briana, Herman and Greg. We said goodbye to my Mom. We all piled into our vans. Greg, Tyler, Herman, Andy, Lynn, Jamie, Jodi and Aaron in Van #2 and Annalyn, Shannon, Briana, Laura, Chrissy, Tommy and Jason in Van #1. We drove up to Madison and hit several pockets of rain on the way up. Greg and Aaron had internet and we checked the radar again. Still looked bad. We got up to Madison by 8:30 and found the start. Most of the other vans in the race were decorated or written on saying various race-related things. Many people were dressed in odd outfits. We checked in our team from Van #1 and they went to a safety meeting. Then they got their numbers and we showed our headlamps and buttlights. We got safety flags to be used when crossing a street. We got the "slap tag" that is to be passed like a baton between runners. We took some pictures and video and Annalyn got ready for the start. The announcer counted it down and she was off at 10:00 with 29 other runners. There were 362 teams in the race starting at various times. The plan was for Jason to drive up ahead of Annalyn and watch to make sure she was OK when she came by. After I taped her going by us, we said goodbye to the rest of our teammates in Van #1. Jason went on ahead of Annalyn and then stopped to watch as she went by. We and our Van #2 teammates drove to the first major exchange which was #6. This was a small town called Lake Mills and the exchange was at the local High School. We parked and checked in our team and got our flags and numbers after we checked in our headlamps and buttlights. We went to our safety meeting. Then we went to find something to eat. We went to a Subway around 11:45 for lunch. The place was pretty empty but within 5 minutes of us walking in, a LOT of runners from other teams walked in. All of a sudden, they were lined up nearly out the door.  We left and went back to the exchange. We had been texting and phoning Jason for updates while we waited for their runners to finish. We heard that Annalyn's first leg was 1/4 mile longer than it was supposed to be due to road construction. She still did it in 41:33. 8:42/mile average. Smokin'! She handed off to Shannon who had a leg of the same distance but took longer than Annalyn so we mocked her for having her cousin make her look bad. From what we heard, Tommy's and Laura's legs went fine but when Chrissy came into the exchange between her and Briana, no one was there waiting for her. Jason said that they actually were there at the exchange but not out of the van yet because Chrissy estimated that she would take longer than she actually ran. She ended up waiting around for 5 minutes or so before Briana got up there. We were trying to rest at the next exchange before Jodi took the bracelet from Briana. Not very easy. One great thing was that somehow it hadn't started raining yet. Greg looked at his radar and predicted 2:00 for the rain to hit. We went out to wait for Briana and she came in a little slower than we had thought but she said she felt fine. She handed off to Jodi and Jodi was off. We left and went to the next exchange where she would hand off to Tyler. Jodi had her cellphone with her and Aaron was able to track her progress via the GPS on his phone. She seemed to be doing fine and came in and handed off to Tyler. We left and passed Tyler on the way to the next exchange at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. We hung out and waited and talked there. Tyler had way underestimated how fast he would run and I totally missed being ready for it when he came in. I had been taping the exchanges but missed this one. Luckily, Herman was ready for him, took the bracelet and took off. We drove to the Herman-Greg exchange point on a bike path in Helenville. Herman also was running really fast but we were ready when he came in. He handed off to Greg and we left for Exchange 10. Greg's leg was completely on a crushed gravel bike path. He was REALLY flying and brought the bracelet to Andy at Cory Park in Dousman. By this time, the guys on our team were counting "kills." "Kills" are when you pass another runner on the course while racing. Our guys were really running hard and getting a lot of kills. So we were running about 1/2 hour ahead of our projected time as of this point. After Andy took off, we went to Wales Community Park in Wales to wait for Andy. His leg was also entirely on the bike path. We saw him coming and got ready for the handoff. He came in and gave us the bracelet and we took off. Our leg was pretty much all on the same path except at the end. It was supposed to be entirely uphill but it turned out that there was just one short, steep hill and that was it. I was thinking we'd come in around 52:00 but we finished that leg in 48:50 and handed off to Annalyn. It was getting closer to sunset so we had to run with reflective vests, headlamps and buttlights from 7:30 PM-6:30 AM. We didn't want Annalyn running these legs alone so we did her 2nd and 3rd legs with her. She took off like there was no tomorrow and it took me a minute or two to catch her. This leg was 4.3 miles for her and she was VERY chatty almost the whole way. She was talking about her first leg and everything that was going on in the other van. It was so awesome to do this leg with our daughter and see her having so much fun doing it. Our van was not allowed to come into the next checkpoint. Annalyn finished this 4.3 mile leg in 34:33. She handed off to Shannon and we ran with Shannon for the first mile of her run until we got to a cross street where the van could pick us up. We said goodbye to Shannon and got in the van. We found out later that Shannon got petrified after she was alone because it was dark by now and she had convinced herself that something bad was going to happen. She even started crying but managed to pull through and finish. We drove ahead to the next major exchange to see where that was. We found it at a high school in Greendale across from a mall. There was a Baker's Square by the mall so we went there to grab a bite to eat. Jodi was already getting tired. We finished eating and went back to the high school This brought us to midnight.

RAGNAR, Day 2.

At midnight, we had just finished eating at a Baker's Square in Greendale and had gone back to the High School to wait to start our next set of legs. This was one of only 2 legs to have indoor showers so I decided to take advantage of it. I got my suitcase and asked a guy where the showers were. He told me where to go. I had to walk through an unlit gym with people sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags all over the place. I got to the showers and realized that I didn't pack any shampoo or soap. So all I could do was rinse off with hot water. I did that and put clean running clothes on. Back to the van and I tried to sleep. Maybe got 15 minutes. Jason and the other van got there after Chrissy handed off to their last runner, Briana. We waited until it was close to when Briana was supposed to come in. The time came and went with no sign of Briana. Then Shannon got a phone call from her saying something about "lost" and "Cop car" before she lost signal. Shannon surmised that Briana was IN a cop car but she had actually tried to get the attention of a local cop by pounding on the windows of his squad car. She thinks he was sleeping. Then, another team saw her and gave her a lift back to where she had gone off course (she misread a directional sign). She came in and handed off to Jodi for her second leg. Once again, Aaron had her tracked via GPS on his cellphone so we knew where she was on the leg. While we waited for Jodi, a reporter named Amy came up to the van to say hi and ask a few questions. She had seen us hand off to Annalyn after our first leg and told the others that she wanted to talk to us later. So we talked with her for a few minutes while waiting for Jodi. Jodi came in and seemed to be OK, maybe a bit tired. She gave it to Tyler who had a very short (2.5 mile) leg. We had to hustle to get to the next exchange before he did. We made it and he handed off to Herman again. We realized by now that our next leg would be in the middle of the night. Earlier, I had thought that we would do Leg 2 around 6 AM or so. That was before I realized just how fast the guys in our van were. They were racking up "Kills" left and right. Tyler and Greg were doing sub-6:00 miles and Andy and Herman were in the 6:30 range with us near 7:00. Since our next run would be probably around 3:40 A.M., I knew that we had to do another leg with Annalyn since it would still be dark. Well, the first run with Annalyn along with the mile with Shannon were slow enough to feel like a cooldown for us so it wasn't bad. We went ahead to the next exchange and hung out waiting for Herman to come in. He did and handed off to Greg. Greg's leg was only 3.6 so we knew he wouldn't take long. Unbelievably, the rain that was predicted and shown on the radar had not hit yet. It had turned foggy and there was mist on the windows. Greg got there quickly and Andy took over. His leg was 4 miles so we had about 26 minutes or so to get to where Lynn and I would start our 2nd leg. We had to park in a gravel lot by a field and walk to the street where the exchange would take place. Andy came in and gave us the slap tag and we took off. This leg started with a few rolling hills but nothing too major. Most of it was on streets with cones on the left side. The race rules said you had to stay to the left of the cones but there was no room for the chair on that side without going off the road. So I just stayed as close to them as I could. I got into a good rhythm and tried to stay there. While we were running, vans from other teams would drive past and honk. Then a van came by and someone called our names. It was Andria Huskinson, the Race Director. She asked how we were doing and we said OK. Annalyn was waiting for us as we came into the next exchange. We gave her the bracelet and started running with her. She was tired but still kept up a great pace. She said that she had been sleeping and they woke her up about 20 minutes before she had to run. We paced her to the next exchange and she handed off to Shannon. So now Annalyn was DONE. She did 4.75 miles in 41:33, 4.3 miles in 34.33 and 3.8 miles in 34:20. A total of 12.85 miles in 1:50:26. That is GREAT! Our van broke a race rule and drove into that exchange to pick us up. The rules stated that only the MAJOR exchanges (6, 12, 18, 24 & 30) along with the start and finish could have BOTH vans there. Since this leg was in the middle of the night they decided to chance it. And no one from the race even noticed. Greg volunteered to run this leg with Shannon after her panic attack on her first leg. Annalyn went with the other van to their next exchange and so did we so we could pick up Greg. We waited in the van for him to come in and it took a while because Shannon had to do 6.3 on this leg. This gave us more time to TRY and sleep. Once again, I got maybe 15 minutes or so. Shannon and Greg finished and Greg rejoined us in our van. We drove on to the next major exchange in Zion at a church. This was the one where our sisters-in-law Lisa and Jen were working as volunteers. Lynn had fallen into a deep sleep on the way there and my left leg was killing me from the Sciatica. I needed to stretch it our but I didn't have enough room where I was sitting. I was in misery until we got to the church and I could get out and stretch it. We saw Lisa and Jen and talked with them. Jason kept us updated with their progress. We hit the port-a-johns, a recurring theme on this race. In fact, at one point, I told Lynn that I had been in more port-a-johns during the last 24 hours than I probably had in the last 24 years. While we were waiting for the runners in the other van to finish, the battery on our van died. We didn't realize how much it would get drained by charging up all of the cellphones, iPods and iPads that we had. Jason had the jumper cables from this van with him because the same thing happened to Mom's van when the two vans were together so they got it jumped and it was OK. So we had to wait for Jason to get there to get this van jumped. They did and we went to the exchange to wait on Briana. She had the honor of being the runner who got to cross the Wisconsin-Illinois state line. We waited what seemed like quite a while for her to come in. Jodi was NOT enjoying herself anymore by this point. The sleep deprivation and lack of her medications had taken their toll and I had volunteered to go with her. She declined because she didn't want to seem like a wuss. Briana ran a slower leg and later told us that her knees were really bugging her. She handed off to Jodi and Van #1 was finished. They were going to head to the finish line and get food along the way. We left and went to the next exchange and followed Jodi's progress on Aaron's cell. She had to stop and walk a time or two on this leg. When Aaron shut the van off in the parking lot, the battery was dead again. There was a car parked next to it with a family in there waiting for someone. I asked the guy if he could give us a jump and he said, "Sure. It's a rental anyway." So he did that and we watched for Jodi. She came in and handed off to Tyler for his last leg. This was the longest of the race, 9.9 miles. We went to the next exchange and just seconds after I told Aaron to NOT turn off the van, he accidentally did. Crap. He got out and asked some guys if they could jump us and they did. We were at Lake Forest High School. This looked like a college campus, it was so huge. Aaron decided that we should replace the battery in the van and started looking for places to go to get it done. I told him that at Pep Boys, he could buy a battery and have them install it there. He found one nearby. Tyler came in a bit slower than normal. He said that he had bathoom issues on this leg and had to stop at a gas station to go. After he handed off to Herman, we left and went to the Pep Boys that was nearby. Aaron and I went in and I explained our situation to the guy at the counter. He said that it would probably be 45 minutes to an hour and we didn't have that much time before Herman would be at the next exchange. So we left. He stopped at a Midas but they couldn't do it that quickly either. So we went on to the next exchange and made sure that he didn't turn off the van. We waited for Herman and saw a female volunteer wearing a Water Buffalo hat directing cars and runners. And two guys who painted their mustaches orange. Herman came in and handed off to Greg. This was only a 4.3 mile leg so we didn't have enough time to look for a place to get the battery replaced. We figured we'd wait until Andy's last leg which was 8.2 miles. Some bad signage near the exchange caused Aaron to make a wrong turn and have to loop around to find the parking area. As we pulled up, we heard, "195. Anyone here from Team 195?" That was our team number. Greg had gotten there just before we did. Andy jumped out quickly and got the slap tag from Greg. Aaron had found a nearby Pep Boys on his iPhone and we went there to see if they could get the battery put in quickly enough for us to get to the last exchange on time. When the mechanic came out and opened the hood, we knew they were going to fix it. We all had to get out of the van. They had to inspect the van to make sure that there wasn't anything else draining the battery before they replaced it. That took a while and by this time, we knew that Andy would hit the last exchange before we could get there. I texted him with the news but his cell was in his stuff in the van. Aaron drove as fast as he could to the last exchange and I got as ready as I could before we got out. This last exchange was at Northwestern University in Evanston. Andy had waited around 15-20 minutes for us. We got out and Lynn got in the chair right away. Andy slapped the tag on her this time and we took off. I was really sore and my left foot was hurting but it was the last leg of the race so there was no way that would stop me. The biggest problem with this leg was that as huge portion of the 8 miles was along Sheridan Road. This meant that we had to run on the sidewalks for nearly all of it. That sucked because there were shoppers walking down the sidewalks, stoplights to deal with, cars pulling up too far to lights and blocking the crosswalks and even a car coming out of a parking garage and blocking the sidewalk as he waited to go into the street. There were countless times that we yelled, "Coming up behind you" or "On your left." People didn't pay attention a lot and this made for a few close calls for us. It was very hard to keep up any kind of speed either. Going into our last leg, the runners in our van had accumulated 197 "kills" during the race. So we need to get 3 to make 200. By the 3rd mile or so, we hit this mark and passed it. It was hard to tell sometimes if someone we passed was in the race because many people were running and not in the race. Especially on the parts that were on the lakefront paths. I was counting down the blocks to the finish by looking at the street signs as we passed them and knowing how many more to Montrose Avenue. The finish was at Montrose Beach. We finally turned off of Sheridan and onto the final section of lakefront path but it was all crushed gravel and I was afraid that we'd get a flat. There was one point on Sheridan where we hit a bump so hard that I heard a crack and thought that the chair had broken. Thank God it didn't. Speaking of thanking God, it NEVER rained for the entire race even though it was predicted for BOTH days and the radar showed bad storms in the area just before the start. As we neared the finish and I could see it off in the distance, we actually went off course once due to bad signage. A sign pointed left to a path but it was BETWEEN two paths and I had to choose which one. Chose the wrong one and it took us to the beach. Only cost us about 30 seconds before I realized my mistake and got back on course. We saw the crowds getting thicker as we got closer to the finish. We passed our 10th and last "kill" for that stage (and 207th for our van) with about 250 yards to go. Our team was waiting just past that and I slowed down so we could all cross the line together. One last obstacle was 10 feet from the finish line when the pavement ended and we had to go across sand to the line. The chair doesn't work on sand but I had enough momentum to get across and WE FINISHED!!!!! 197 miles in 28:55:02. We finished in 74th Place of the 167 teams in the Mixed Open Division. It never rained and we all came in relatively healthy.

Annalyn finished 6th Grade with a perfect year of Straight A's on her report card. We are SO proud of her!

On  5/1, we ran the First Midwest Bank Southwest Half-Marathon in Palos Heights. This is the 3rd year we've done this race and we'll keep doing it as long as Mel Diab is in charge. A month or so before the race, Jamie was worried about even being able to complete the race because of the Sciatica problem. The quandary was that he needed to back off the speed and mileage to speed up the healing but then he would lose fitness and gain weight in the process. 4 weeks before the race, we did a 13 mile training run and it took 10:00 longer than we ran the race last year. Frustrating. The Good Lord had better plans for us, though, because by race day we were able to cut that in half and finish in 1:32:43. Jamie was happy that her had something left in the tank at the end and passed a lot of runners in the last 5K. We finished in 86th place overall out of 1632 runners. Top 5% or so.

On April 27th, Annalyn ran her 1,000th consecutive day of doing at least one mile.

On April 11th, we ran our 17,000th mile together since we started back in 1991.

On March 29, Jamie ran his 7,000th consecutive day of doing at least one mile.

We did the Running O' The Green 8K on 3/13 near the Rec Center here in Tinley Park. It was incredibly frustrating because we have run this course over 120 times in training in the past year but when race day came, physical and mechanical problems kept us from a good result. Jamie's Sciatic Nerve issue hadn't resolved itself and he was also coming off a bout with Walking Pneumonia. Then, to top it off, the morning of the race, he managed to flatten one of the racing chair tires while putting air in it and we had to race with the old wheelchair that we used to run with. Annalyn and our niece, Shannon, also raced but none of us did great. We finished in 37:01 (3 1/2 minutes slower than last year), Annalyn did 50:00 and Shannon 47:33. No age group awards for any of us.

Annalyn ran track at Grissom Middle School this spring to work on her speed. She was able to bring her mile PR down to 7:24 and has run numerous sub-8:00 miles since she started track.

The final numbers are in for 2010. Lynn and Jamie ran 1643 miles together, more than we've ever done in one year. Jamie did a total of 2053 (counting time on the treadmill when the weather was bad). Annalyn ran 553 miles, also a new high for one year.

Well, the 2010 racing season is over for the 3 of us and it turned out to be one of our best ones ever. Lynn and I ran 17 races, 16 of them competitively (one the SF 1/2 Marathon, we were pacing our niece Shannon and Jamie's sister, Jodi). Out of the 16 we ran competitively, we won our age group 8 times, came in 2nd 4 times, 3rd once and 4th the other 3 times. Our average finish was in the top 4% of each race. Annalyn started out slow but finished strong, setting new 5K best times at her last two races. Her previous best going into this year was 28:47. She ran 26:59 and 26:55 at her last two races of the season. We give credit to her cross-country coaches, Bob Heenan and Pauline Luttrell and her cousin Shannon for helping her find some late season speed in those legs.

11/20 was our last race of the season, the Orland Hills Turkey Trot 5K. Weather was chilly (39) but sunny without much wind. Race started at 10. We had to ease up a few times after the start to avoid clipping heels in front of us and had to do a bit a weaving through traffic the first 1/4 mile or so. That, combined with a slight uphill grade and a slight breeze in our face got me a bit winded. Once we got some clear space to run, I felt better. The issues at the start caused our first mile to be slow (6:22). We had other issues too, mainly the use of sidewalks instead of streets and the numerous 90 degree turns all over the course. Making those tight turns with the chair was very tough. I never saw the 2-mile mark (it was there but in a high traffic area with runners going both directions). We gradually picked off runners as we went along. I knew the 3-mile mark was at the last corner so I couldn't hit my watch for that split. We came up to the finish and I saw the clock still under 19:00 which really surprised me. We hit the line in 18:54.94 by my watch. Wow! Very cool. Good way to finish the season. We turned around to look for the girls. Mrs. Luttrell came in just under 23:00. Briana Watson, a friend from church, finished just over 24:00. Dad said that Shannon was a bit ahead of Annalyn when he saw them by the baseball fields with about 3/4 mile to go. He said that we were in 12th or 13th overall at that point too. We saw Shannon coming in with a great time. She finished in 26:14, which I believe is a PR for her. Annalyn wasn't far behind and we cheered her in and ran beside her for a few seconds. She finished in 26:55, beating her PR from last Sunday's Tinley Turkey Trot by 4 seconds. All Right!!! They didn't start the awards until about 11:15. This was the race where I had to sign up Annalyn in the 13-17 age group because they didn't have one for younger kids unless they wanted to run the 2K kids race. They gave awards to the top 6 in that group because so many had signed up. Briana Watson got 3rd and Shannon and Annalyn just missed out, probably coming in 7th and 8th. I'll be interested to see where she would have finished if there was a 14 and under group. I thought we had a shot at an award since Dad said we were 12th or 13th but the 10-year groups killed that. We were 4th. Oh well. We ran great and that's all I asked for.

On 11/14, we ran the Tinley Turkey Trot 5K. It was 39 with winds gusting to 29 mph. They had over 900 runners sign up. The gun went off and we got off the line OK. The first time up the hill was no problem and we hit mile 1 in 6:04. Right where I had hoped. We came down the hill and back towards the start and started catching the wind in our faces. At that point, 3 guys passed us and I just tried to keep a good rhythm. We came by the start and Dad yelled out that we were in 21st Place. We did 6:21 then 2nd mile which I didn't like but a lot of that mile was against the wind. We started to catch up to the guys who passed us. The second time up the hill usually is a lot tougher but I guess the hill training we've been doing paid off because it was no problem. We came down and passed the 3 guys who caught us earlier along with one other guy. We were now into the back of the pack with all of the walkers (it's a 2-lap race and the walkers were still on their first time around). Instead of being to the right side of the road, they were spread out all over the place. I thought for sure that we'd get passed back by some of the guys we'd just gone by but maybe all of the traffic helped us. I know it wasn't easy for us weaving through everyone but we had the advantage of being first through the crowds. We came around the last corner and did 6:08 for the 3rd mile (more like it). I just put my head down and went as hard as I could. Unbelievably, no one passed us and we hit the line in 17th place. My watch read 19:11 but our printout later said 19:09 according to our timing chip. The guys behind all came in within 4 seconds of us. My fingers were in terrible pain from the cold. We started walking back along the course to look for the girls and almost immediately, there was Annalyn. Holy Cow! I figured with the wind and cold that they'd come in around 29 or 30 minutes. I ran even with her to the line and she finished in 26:59!!!!! A PR by nearly 2 minutes! She was alone though so I went to look for Shannon. I saw her farther down the road and cheered her in. She hit the line in 28:20. Not a bad time either. We were standing near the finish line most of this time congratulating the girls and talking to other people. A lot of other runners were doing the same and we later found out that because we were so close to the finish line timing mat, it was picking up our timing chips and screwing up their results. We went over to the printout tape machine but the machine screwed up just before we got there. The guy had to reset it and we all got our printouts. Annalyn was 12th of 65 in her age group and Shannon was 11th of 25 in hers. We got 1st in our group. Or so I thought. We went back out for awards around 9:15. It was taking forever to get them going. A friend of ours came out and told me that they wanted to see me inside because the results now showed him in 2nd in our group and didn't have me in there at all. I went in and there was a line of people with results problems. Most of them got blank printouts. I told the guy where we finished and showed him our printout and he manually put us in there back in 1st in our group. Back out and they were finally starting awards around 9:45. They started with the older groups (yay!). Right with the first group, there were results mixups. Guys in wrong groups our not there at all who finished ahead of guys who they gave awards to. The results guy came back out with a new printout which he claimed was 100% correct. They got to our group and they had me in 2nd Place, with another guy at 18:48. I asked about that and the results guy came up and said that they guy who finished first had his results not come up at first but he legitimately beat us. He also said that we were going to win the award for 1st place Tinley Resident and get a huge plaque. Awesome! I was surprised since 16 guys beat us but I wasn't going to argue. They continued with awards and there were several other groups that had screwups in their results that they had to try and rectify. They got to the end and the last awards were for 1st place male and female in resident and non-resident. They called my name for first Tinley resident and another guy said that he was a Tinley resident and finished in 16-something. They were going to try and work it out but we had to get going to get to church by 10:30. I gave John Curran, the Park District Director, the plaque and said to give it to the guy who beat us since I knew that since 16 guys beat us that at least one of them had to be from Tinley.

10/9 was the Old Plank Trail 5K in Frankfort. Shannon and Annalyn were going to run together as a "wolfpack" today because they did so well last Monday in practice. We wished them luck and made our way through the crowd until we saw Pauline Luttrell. We said hi to her and lined up next to her about 10 feet from the start line. They had D-Tag timing so it didn't matter that we weren't right at the line. Weather was sunny and about 63. The start line was just on the other side of White Street on the Plank Trail. Problem number one (of several) was that you had about 300 runners all trying to start on a 6-foot wide bike path. So when the race started, it was a nightmare trying to find any open space and not hit anyone. It took probably 1/4 mile before it opened up a bit and we could maneuver more easily. They had the miles marked but no clocks there (Problem 2). We came down Nebraska Street parallel to the Plank Trail heading back west and my Dad was right near the 1-mile mark. He said that there were 8 runners ahead of us. I had no watch on so I couldn't judge my pace at all (I let Annalyn have hers back to use for the race). We got past the fire station and then turned off Nebraska and ran through the parking lot. An access path that led back to the Plank Trail was next to the parking lot but you had to cross a 10-foot wide stretch of grass to get to it (Problem 3). We ran up that path to the Plank Trail and then had to make a hard left on to it. There was a guy with a sign with an arrow pointing left. We made the turn and were right at the bridge going over La Grange Road. Mile 2 was right here. Still in 9th place at this point. We got over the bridge the first time without much problem. As we headed down the other side, I could see the 8th place guy coming back to us a bit. The path wasn't closed to regular runners and bikers (Problem 4) so I had to try and time it when I wanted to pass him because there were some non-racers on the path. We got past him and then there was a turnaround (Problem 5) which I hate. Kills any momentum that you have. Then, you had to make a wide turn and go across more grass before coming back to the Plank Trail going east (Problem 6). The guy we just passed was right behind us at the turn so I figured he'd catch us going over the bridge the second time. It was harder the second time because I was more tired and had more time to think about having to do it again. We saw Pauline Luttrell just before we started over the second time. We got to the top without being passed but Problem 7, the biggest and most dangerous problem, was dead ahead. As we came down the hill there were slower runners just making the turn to go up for the first time. They were allowed to go across to the right side of the path cutting in front of any runners coming the other way. We saw Annalyn and Shannon just before we got to that point. They looked good. Amazingly (thank you Lord) a gap opened up between groups of runners and we got past that point without having to slow to avoid hitting anyone. I'm sure there were some runners who weren't as lucky. The rest of the course was flat back to the finish by the Grainery and we held onto 8th Place and hit the line in 19:47. Wow! That was slow. We found out later that the course was about 500 feet too long (Problem 8) so we ran maybe 30 seconds more than a 5K (closer to 3.2 miles). Dad and his friends were there to cheer us on at the finish. We hung out with them and cheered on Pauline Luttrell as she came in in 23:53 (4th woman). Then we watched and waited for Annalyn and Shannon. I kept looking at the clock and then looking back down the path. Then we saw them in the distance and cheered like crazy for them. Annalyn was ahead of Shannon and hit the line in 30:52. Shannon came in in 31:09. They were together until the 2nd time over the bridge when Shannon had to stop because she felt nauseous. They went to get water while we talked with Dad and his friends. They were all leaving to go to Sandburg for a walk-through of the school at 11. We said goodbye and then went to find the girls. I didn't know that the timing company had the tape printouts of the results and the girls had stood in line to get theirs. They came running up to us all excited. Annalyn got FIRST in the 11-15 age group and Shannon was second! Wow! Sweet! They saw Mrs. Luttrell and showed her and got high fives. They got in line for us while we went to get food and water. They only had bagels but were completely out of water (Problem 9). There were a few small bottles of apple juice so I grabbed two of them for us. The girls came up with our results and we got 2nd in our group and Mrs. Luttrell got 3rd in hers. Cool! We hung out with her through the awards. They only gave out awards for 1st place in each age group so Annalyn was the only one who got a medal. They took her picture while she was up there.

Annalyn ran cross-country with the Grissom Middle School Girls team this year and ended up doing great and having fun despite her apprehension at the start of the season. She ended up running in 7 of the 8 meets and took 3 1/2 minutes off her time from her first meet to her last. Great job Annalyn!

Cross-country update. 9/27 was the Southwest Interscholastic Conference championship meet at Orland Jr. High. Annalyn ran the "Open" race and finished the two miles in 17:09, her best time of the year by nearly a minute! The Grissom girls team finished first and brought home the Conference Championship banner. Kudos to all the girls and their coaches, Bob Heenan and Pauline Luttrell.

Oh, yes I did say Grissom Middle School. Annalyn is now a 6th Grader.

Race recap in order of most recent.

9/26 was the Harvest 5K in Plainfield. We love this course. Can you guess why? It's FLAT!!!! We had great weather. 56 and sunny with a bit of a breeze. A HUGE turnout for this one. 979 finishers, the most they've ever had at this race. We started out well and did 6:04 and 5:57 for our first two miles. We caught the breeze in our faces coming back which slowed us just a little. We still hit the finish in 18:55, our best time EVER at this race and we've been doing it since 2000. We finished 14th Overall of 979 and 2nd of 54 in the 45-49 age group.

9/12 was the Monee In Motion 5k in Monee, IL Another flat course but a very small turnout (only 35 finishers). We got off the line OK and were in 3rd Place by the first turn on the course. We reeled in the 2nd Place guy around the 1 mile mark. Or around there since they didn't have the miles marked. We knew who was in first and there was no way to catch him so I just tried to hold on to 2nd. Mark Luttrell was the first place guy. He's a track/cross-country coach at Andrew High School and his wife, Pauline, is one of Annalyn's cross-country coaches at Grissom Middle School. Since the miles weren't marked, it was hard to get a sense of how fast I was going. We came around the last turn and I saw the clock still had 18 as the first two numbers. We hit the line in 18:42, our fastest 5K since 9/16/2001!!! I thought taht maybe the course was short because they moved the start and finish lines but Mark said that his GPS read 3/1 miles on his watch. Cool! Pauline won the women's race and our niece, Shannon, finished in 27:38, her best 5K ever. She came in 16th Overall and first in the 15-19 group.

9/6 was the Scenic 5-miler in Park Forest. That was a strange race because we ran one of our best 5-mile races ever, finishing in 31:39, but our overall finish was only 47th of 298. They had a REALLY fast field. We went through the first mile in 5:56 and were barely in the top 50. Our next 3 miles were all in the 6:20-6:23 range and the last was 6:39 (mostly uphill and into the wind). We got 3rd in the 45-49 age group.

8/8 was the Wish Maker's 5K in Joliet. Annalyn ran this one with us. It was warm and pretty humid. Most of this race was on bike trails. There were 90 finishers and we came in 3rd Overall in 19:45. Annalyn finished in 31:31 but got 3rd in the 14 & under age group.

We went out to California in July to visit with Jamie's sister, Jodi, and her family for 5 days in July. Here's the recap of the trip.

Day 1-July 21st. Took limo to Midway Airport. Flew to San Jose with Jamie's parents, brothers Mike and Jason and their families. 13 in all. Met Jamie's sister and her family at the airport. Went to see their house. Very nice. Out to dinner later for Mexican food. Yummy.

Day 2-July 22nd. We drove 1/2 hour to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, where they have an amusement park. That was a fun day. We were there until about 7. Annalyn and the other kids had a ball and went on a ton of rides. Lynn and I did Laser tag (she did better than me but Annalyn beat all of us), cable cars, Ferris wheel and a roller coaster. We got to sit in the front car and go twice. Unfortunately, both of us had our shades on top of our heads and they flew off. I was able to grab mine but Lynn's were gone.

Day 3-July 23rd. We drove to the San Francisco Marathon Expo with my sister, Jodi and 15-year-old niece, Shannon, who were running the race along with my brother, Mike, who was there to help out. We wandered a bit looking for the right parking lot for the VIPs. We found it and went inside. We came across Jo Jo, one of the expo officials. She showed us where we'd be showing the DVD. We met the sound guy who was also named Jamie. Nice guy. We checked the DVD and it played fine. We had Jamie, the sound guy, start the DVD although no one was in there at first. Eventually, people started trickling in. By the end, there were maybe 20-25 in there watching it. I said a few words afterwards and took questions. One guy asked about training in Chicago for the Boston Marathon and I told him that it was hard because we don't have a lot of hills there. Jodi asked about who inspires me. Lynn and Jesus. Our hour was up. We thanked everyone for coming. We packed up and went shopping at the Expo for Lynn and Annalyn. We met Bart Yasso from Runner's World and talked with him for a minute. Very nice guy. We found some shirts for Lynn and Annalyn. Lynn's says, "Will Run For Coffee." and Annalyn's says, "I Know I Run Like A Girl. Try To Keep Up." We found out that our start time for the race the next morning was 5:52 A.M.! We'll have to get up by 3:35!

Day 4-July 24th. Most of the adults went shopping and all of the kids went swimming at our hotel pool. We visited a local running store, Running Revolution, in Campbell. Jodi and Shannon stocked up on Gu gels. Back to Jodi's for pizza and pasta. Had to make it an early night.

Day 5-July 25th. It was Jodi's 40th birthday (and her husband Aaron's 43rd). Up at 3:35. We got ready to go and met in the lobby at 4:15. Aaron, Jodi, my Dad, brother Mike, his wife Lisa, Shannon and Annalyn were there. We drove to downtown San Francisco and parked in a handicapped spot not far from the start area. It was 5:35. We started at 5:52. Great running weather. Upper 50s and foggy. A bit chilly for Lynn though. We had to cut in line at the handicapped port-a-john so Lynn could go before the race. I put our number and D-Tag on and we found Jodi and Shannon and headed to the start just as they were counting down. I had the camcorder and my cellphone to use along the way. We started and stayed with Shannon to Mile 1. That took her 10:48. We stopped and waited for Jodi to come up. She did in 12:20. We ran to catch up with Shannon. That took all the way to Mile 2. We ran with her until Mile 6 which was halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge. I took video and was texting Aaron with updates. There were some huge hills leading up to the bridge. In fact, a guy actually grabbed one side of Lynn's chair and helped push up two of the hills. I thanked him. We let Shannon go and waited for Jodi. Lynn was cold and the wind was whipping across the bridge pretty good. Another guy saw her and gave her his throwaway jacket. Wow! Very nice! That helped. A cop on a mountain bike came up to ask how we were doing. I told him that we were waiting on my sister. Runners were going around us and I think he wanted us to keep going to get out of the way. I looked at my watch and said that we'd start up again if she wasn't here by 78:00. She wasn't so we kept going. We saw Shannon pass by going the other direction on the bridge. She looked great. We went down to Vista Point. It was just after the far end of the bridge. There was an area there where we could get off the road a bit. I shot video and a lady there shot some of us. Within about 5 minutes, we saw Jodi. So she must have been very close to us when we left Mile 6 on the bridge. I taped her going by and we started up again. We went around the circle at Vista Point and there was Aaron, Mike, Lisa, my Dad and Annalyn. We caught up to Jodi and ran with her until just past Mile 8. She was still running and said that she only had stopped to walk twice. Not bad for a woman who had major surgery recently. She told us to go and be with Shannon when she hits the finish. The bridge has 6 lanes for traffic. 3 of them still had car traffic and two were for the runners going each way. There was one lane between that no one was in. There were so many runners that it was very hard to weave through them to try and make up time to catch Shannon. I saw a few others in the buffer lane so I decided that we'd try that. We were passing hundreds of runners so it was working great. Then at the last second, I saw a bridge grate. The grates were covered in the lanes for the runners so no one would trip or turn an ankle on them. They weren't covered in the buffer lane and the gaps in the grate were just a hair bigger than the front tire of the racing chair. I was really moving fast and when we hit the grate, the front tire went down in it and the chair stopped right away. Unfortunately, I didn't and I smacked my left foot into the support bar that runs across the back of the chair on the bottom. It hurt but I first had to make sure Lynn was OK. The seat belt held her in tightly so she was OK. I got the chair out of the grate and we got going again back in the runner's lane. My big toe on my left foot was in pain but I figured it would go away eventually. I was still trying to catch Shannon who I figured was at least 2 miles ahead of us. The hills got worse after the bridge. A couple of long inclines followed by a steep downhill that killed my arms trying to hold back on the chair. Then we got into the neighborhoods and it was one huge steep hill after another. Straight up and straight down. No flat ground in between. This happened maybe 7 or 8 times. I was toast. I kept hoping we'd see Shannon but the hills kept me from making any time on her. We never did catch her. The road finally flattened out right before the finish and we came in with a time of 2:30:23. Shannon had finished about 8 minutes ahead of us. We went back by the finish to look for Jodi. The cutoff for the race was 3 hours. Then we saw her. I taped her coming in and she hit the line in 2:52! Wow! They BOTH did it! We are so proud of them, as was everyone else. A 15-year-old girl and a 40-year old that is coming off major surgery within the last 2 months and they both finished! We all hooked up and walked back to the van. My toe was REALLY hurting a lot and I was starting to wonder if I broke it. Back to the hotel to take a quick shower. The toe did not look good. Very swollen and black and blue. We checked out and went back to Jodi's. We still had to run with Annalyn. Or limp, in my case. We did that and hung out until it was time to leave for the airport. Once there, we checked bags, the racing chair and got our pre-board passes. We had to fly to Phoenix first and then to Chicago. As we sat on the plane waiting for it to taxi, I saw that the racing chair was still in a luggage truck on the side of the plane. My Mom pointed that out to the flight attendant and she said that it was because it would be the last thing on the plane. Made sense. 15 minutes later or so, they closed the doors on the plane and the chair was still out there. I told the flight attendant again and she said that it was stowed under the plane. She thought I meant Lynn's other chair. I pointed out the racing chair and they got someone to go and get it. Sheesh! That would have been bad if they forgot that. Once we took off, we spent most of the flight talking to the guy who sat next to me. His name was Dave Williams. He's a Christian guy and he and his wife were missionaries in east Asia. He is involved with a company that makes a part for small motorbikes that cuts the pollution way down. Most of Viet Nam is overloaded with these motorbikes and they say that the pollution from one of them is equal to about 50 American cars. Wow. We left at 7:15  for Chicago. My toe was in a LOT of pain. I wanted to sleep on the flight but it kept me awake. We landed at midnight (Chicago time). We went down to baggage and saw my brother Jason there. He (and our limo guy) had checked our flight number and it said that we'd be landing at 1:20 A.M. There was some confusion in Phoenix because some of the people on the first flight had to switch planes while we got to stay on. They changed our flight number in Phoenix. Jason thought that Mike, Lisa and their son Joey (who had flown through Denver) would have to wait nearly 2 hours for us so he came to get them. Then we walked up and surprised them. We got our bags and the racing chair. One of the back wheels was off but it was OK. My Dad got his truck and we loaded it up. He left and Jason took my Mom and his wife Jen with him. We still had to wait for the limo guy who thought we were coming in at 1:20. He showed up and we got in with Lisa, Mike, Joey, Jason's kids Kaylee & Jacob and Annalyn. Back to my Mom's by 2. We got our stuff in our car, said goodbye and left. Back home by 2:33.Mike and Lisa came and picked up their dogs (who were good after Lynn's Mom decided to stay at our house because they (and our dog Lulu) peed everywhere the first day we were gone). Annalyn got her PJs on and crashed. I got our stuff unpacked and put away. Lynn got in bed by 3:15. I  followed at 3:40. We had been up for 22 hours.

July 15th was the Sundowner 5K in Joliet at Pilcher Park. We had a bit of an off night, finishing in 19:49 and 4th in our age group (36th Overall of 562). We got caught up in traffic at the start (nearly 600 runners squeezing onto a bike path just 100 yards or so after the start line). It took us about 5:00 before we could even pass anybody. Then to top it off, the course was in sad shape. I don't know if it was the harsh winter we had but the potholes were outright dangerous and there were hundreds of them. I was surprised that we didn't get a flat tire from hitting so many.

July 4th was the annual Stars & Stripes 5K at McCarthy Park in Tinley, just a couple of blocks from our house. It was very humid for the 8 AM start. We went out pretty fast (6:03 & 6:01 the first two miles). The hills on the bike path around the reservoir get us every year and this year was no exception. We hit the finish in 19:24, which put us 20th Overall of 568. We won the 45-49 age group so I can't complain too much. Annalyn, unfortunately, didn't have the same good fortune that we did. She struggled big time, coming in with a time of 32:41.

June 17th was the Short Run On A Long Day 5K in Frankfort. We love this course because it's very flat. It was pretty warm (83) and sunny but the humidity wasn't bad. We got off the line well and hit Mile 1 in 6:01. I counted runners ahead of us at a turn near the halfway point and could see that we were in 8th place. We caught one of them to get to 7th but he got us back on a little rise as we came up to the Plank Trail. Mile 2 was 6:09 as we came back through downtown Frankfort past the Grainery. I tied up a bit in Mile 3 (6:21) but we still hit the finish in 19:11, which tied for the second best time out of the 8 times we've done this race. We finished 8th of 231 Overall and won our age group. Annalyn finished in 31:11 which is her best time out of the 3 times she's run this race. She got 3rd Place in the 14 & Under age group. Way to go, Annalyn!

We did an appearance at the Dick Pond Athletics store in Lisle on June 10th before their weekly Thursday night 4-mile fun run. We did a meet & greet from 5-6, then the 4-miler, followed by a Q & A. It was fun and we plan on going back. We met up with the Race Director for the inaugural Fox Valley Marathon, who invited us to be a part of their festivities. The race is September 19th.

June 6th was the Running For Hope 5K across the street from Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn. This is a great course, about as flat as you'll ever see. It did have a lot of turns (17). We settled into a good rhythm quickly and hit the first mile in 6:05. We were right behind the first two women who were within 5 feet of each other for most of the race. One of them was Shannon Javeras, one of our Facebook friends, and the women's winner from last year. We stayed maybe 10 yards behind them through all of Mile 2 which we did in 6:15. I knew that there were a couple of nice long stretches in the last mile so I got a little more speed going and was able to pass both women with maybe 1/2 mile to go. The 3-mile mark was right at the last turn before the finish and we did Mile 3 in 6:13. I kept going as hard as I could all the way to the line and we hit the finish in 19:15. We waited for Annalyn to come in. Her time was 31:34, not one of her better races. We finished 7th of 537 Overall and 1st in the 45-49 age group.

Memorial Day, May 31st, was the Ridge Run 10K in the Beverly neighborhood on the far southwest side of Chicago. This race has been around for 33 years and we've never done it, mostly because I've heard of a monster hill on it. Don't like monster hills. We got off the line and had to weave a bit through traffic to find some open area. Once we did, we had a nice, long gradual downhill for the first mile-and-a half or so. My neighbor Mark has done this race and had warned me about the hill at 1.8 miles. It was nasty but actually the kind of hill I like. Steep but short. The major problem with it was that the road was all busted up. We got to the top and I was gasping for breath. They had a water station right at the top of the hill and on the opposite side of the street from where we were. So I couldn't get water to try and recharge. I was pissed. A bunch of runners passed us as we went up the hill and just after before I could catch my breath. From there on in, I just tried to limit my losses because I knew from our splits that our time would not be good. I took water at every station I could and dumped it over my head. I drank some too when I could and ran through every sprinkler and hose available. The rest of the course was mostly flat but they really need to fix those roads. Lynn was getting bounced around even with me trying to avoid the bad road. Our splits were generally in the mid-6:30s wth one of 7:05. I felt like I was going much slower. We were neck and neck with the second place woman for most of the last half of the race. We ended up beating her. We also beat Mark which surprised me. He was slightly ahead of us after about 1/2 mile but we passed him and then I never saw him again. I thought he had to have passed us on the hill but he didn't (he ended up 4 places behind us). We hit the finish in 41:28, way off the 40:00 goal that I had hoped for. But, as I learned later, everyone ran slower. We ended up coming in 26th overall out of 950 finishers, which is pretty darned good considering the conditions.

May 2nd was the Palos Bank Southwest Half-Marathon. I woke up at 4 AM to hear it pouring rain outside. I wasn't looking forward to 13.1 miles in the rain and I'm SURE Lynn wasn't either. It had let up by the time we got up at 6:40. It actually turned out to be a near-perfect day to run. The temperature was 55 and it was cloudy with not a hint of wind. Last year, when we did this race, I got caught up in the excitement at the start and started out WAY too fast. Although we ended up beating our goal of 90 minutes, it probably could have been better if I hadn't done that. So what did I do this year? Well, my goal was to average 6:45 per mile. That would put us in somewhere in the mid 1:28:00 range (last year was 1:29:00). We went out in 6:19 and 6:21 the first two miles. Uh oh. Here we go again. I felt really good and though I eased off the throttle a little, our splits were coming in about 10-15 seconds per mile better than last year. We had done a lot more training on hills in preparation for the race this year and it was paying off big time. I was able to keep the pace where I wanted it and we hit the finish in 1:27:38. WOW! That's 82 seconds under last year! We were planning on making the second service at church but we wanted to stick around until they posted the results just to see where we came in overall. Well, we ended up having to skip church because we had to stay for awards. We WON our age group! There were 1428 finishers and we came in 44th Overall and FIRST in the 45-49 age group. We only missed out by one spot of a cash award. They gave those to the top 3 male and female in the Masters category (40 & over). We were 4th.

April 24th was the Tiger 5K (formerly Steelmen 5K) at Joliet Speedway. The course is simple. Two laps around the race track. The last time we did this, it was about 80 degrees and sunny and the heat reflected off the track and made it miserable for the runners. This time it was 60 and cloudy. Annalyn and our niece, Shannon, were running too. We had our best 5K result since August of 2004. Our time was 18:58. We finished 9th Overall of 376 and 1st in the 45-49 age group. Shannon did her best 5K ever in 26:37 and Annalyn came in with 30:42.

April 18th was the Lockport Township High School Foundation 5K. This was a new race (we love new races). The course was advertised as flat and fast. False advertising. It was fast at the beginning because it was mostly downhill. But what goes down, must come back up. The back half was mostly uphill. We still ran a respectable time of 19:34 and finished 5th Overall of 202 and 1st in our 45-49 age group.  

 March 14 was the inaugural Runnin' O' The Green 8K at the Bettenhausen Rec Center in Tinley Park. It's only about 4 blocks from our house so we jogged over there for our warmup before the race. The weather was not great (40 and windy) but at least the rain that was predicted didn't happen. The first race of the year is always a question mark because it's hard to gauge your fitness when you've run inside for most of the past 3 months. We hadn't done ANY speedwork outside and Jamie was concerned about a tight hamstring going into the race. The course was mostly flat with several small rolling hills along the way. The big issue of the day was the wind. It was blowing at a constant 20-30 mph and was in our faces for most of the last half of the race. We took advantage of the wind at our backs at the start and did a 6:21 first mile. Our across the street neighbor, Mark Reilly, was just in front of us. He's running the Boston Marathon next month so we were impressed with his speed after all the miles of marathon training. Miles 2 and 3 were still mostly with the wind at our backs and we did those at a 6:45/mile pace. The last two miles were all into the wind and it showed. We slowed to a 6:54 4th mile. We turned onto a bike path for the last 3/4 mile and

neighbor Mark had pulled away a bit. Jamie was just trying to maintain his position but as we turned onto the path behind the Rec Center with 1/2 mile to go, we heard footsteps. It turned out to be our friend Gil Hannon, who just happens to be Jamie's age and therefore in our age group. He stayed right behind us until about 1/4 mile to go and then came around. Jamie was completely tapped out so he couldn't hold him off. We did 6:49 the last mile so it's not like Jamie completely died. We had predicted a time of 33:30 before the race and hit the line in 33:33. That was good enough for 15th place overall out of 454 finishers. Gil was 14th and

neighbor Mark was 11th. Our time was 1:35 slower than the 8K we ran in Joliet last November but that course was dead flat and we had better weather for that race. We got second place in our age group (Gil was first). Mark got first in his group.

11/8/09 was race #200 for Lynn and Jamie since we started at the Heart & Sole 10K back in July of 1991.

We had a great time in Milwaukee on the weekend of 10/2-4, 2009. We were honored to be the Keynote speakers at the expo the day before the Lakefront Marathon.  Lynn and I were running as part of the Marathon Relay. We ran the last 7.25 miles as part of Team Running For Jenny Crain. Annalyn and our other relay partners joined us for the last mile. It was a fun time.

Jamie spent 32 hours at South Suburban Hospital on 8/10-11, 2009 due to a combination of factors resulting in severe dehydration. It started the week before when he was having chills, fever, body aches and headache. He went to see his doctor and she looked at his sinuses and throat and determined that it was an Upper Respiratory Infection. Jamie disagreed because he didn't have any congestion or other things usually associated with that kind of infection. Can't argue with the doc. She put him on antibiotics. By Friday evening, 8/7, Jamie realized that the infection he had was a bit "farther south." But he figured that the antibiotics the doc put him on might get rid of that too. We had a race coming up in Shorewood on Sunday, 8/9, and Annalyn and our niece, Shannon, were signed up to run it too. Jamie told himself that if he felt lousy before the race, he would just take the girls and watch them run. He felt good that morning but it was a very warm and humid day. The race is mostly flat to downhill for the first two miles before it starts to go back up. There is one really huge hill about 3/4 mile from the finish. Jamie went out conservatively in 6:15 for each of the first two miles. The hills, heat and his health combined to knock him for a loop at the end of the race and we crossed the finish line in 20:43, our slowest 5K this year by far. He still didn't feel any worse than normal after the race and we got Gatorade and water and waited for the girls to come in. Annalyn finished in 32:07 and Shannon just 3 seconds later. They were 91st and 92nd Overall and 4th and 5th in their age group. Lynn and Jamie were 10th Overall and 2nd in the 45-49 group. After awards, we went to church and then to Jamie's Mom's house for lunch. He still wasn't feeling any worse than he usually does after a race. Then, when we got home, Annalyn noticed that it felt warm in the house. It was 85. The Air Conditioner was broken. We put all of the ceiling fans on and the portable fan wherever we were at the time. Jamie tried to get someone out but no one could get there the rest of the day. We all took cool showers and pulled the shades closed to try and keep the hot air out. It got up to at least 88 in the house before nightfall. Lynn and Annalyn went to bed but Jamie couldn't sleep. What he didn't know was that the infection was worsened by running the 5K in hot, humid conditions and then compounded by the lack of AC in the house. He was slowly dehydrating but didn't realize it. Monday morning was Annalyn's first day of Running Camp. We all walked there since it was only 3 blocks away. We stayed while the kids did their stretching, warmups and 1 1/2 mile run. We talked with Mr. Heenan, the coach. Nice guy. After practice, we walked back home. Lynn and Annalyn ate breakfast but Jamie had no appetite. He got on the couch (mind you, the AC was still out) and things progressively got worse. He knew he'd have to go back to the doctor so he asked Lynn to call her Mom at work so she could come over while Jamie was gone. He got an earlier appointment than he thought he'd get so his sister-in-law, Lisa, came over so he could leave right away. He got to the doctor's office and after she saw the sample he gave, she said, "You need to go to the hospital." His Mom said she'd drive him and would meet him at home. He got there before she did and then did something only an obsessed runner with a 17 1/2 year running streak going would do. He ran. If you call it that. He shuffled a mile (must do at least a mile to keep the streak alive) in 11:06. By that time, his Mom was there and she and Lynn read him the riot act for doing his run. We headed to South Suburban Hospital where he was admitted and spent the next 32 hours getting IV fluids and antibiotics dripped into him. Doctor said that his white blood cell count was nearly triple what it normally is and that he could have gone into Renal Failure, where his organs start to shut down. He felt much better the next day and talked the doctor into letting him go home that evening. His Dad picked him up and dropped him at home. So what did he do before he picked up his prescriptions at the drug store? He went outside and ran a mile. Streak intact.

"Marathon Love" is now an award-winning documentary!! The US International Film and Video Festival in LA named it a Gold Camera winner for 2009 and it was nominated for "Best in Festival."

We were in Cumberland, Maryland on April 18th & 19th, 2009 as honorary starters of the Mountain Maryland Marathon, 1/2 Marathon, 5K and Kids' Marathon. Thanks to Race Director Kevin Spradlin for inviting us. We spoke at their pre-race dinner on the 18th and fired the starting gun on the 19th. Annalyn ran the 5K and finished in 29:31, her best 5K ever by 1:24. She was 70th of 137 Overall and 2nd in her age group. Weather turned out great.

On April 25th, 2009, we met Phil Keoghan of "The Amazing Race" at a Bike MS event in Chicago. What a nice, approachable guy. He signed autographs for us and we took pictures and video before he shot a segment for the Bonnie Hunt Show. We hung out with his Dad, John, for probably 20 minutes while Phil was doing his "thing" for his sponsors. Incredibly nice man. We can see where Phil gets it from. He invited us to the Bed & Breakfast that he and his wife run in New Zealand just south of Christchurch. Better start saving now. We also talked with Greg, the motorcycle driver for Phil's Ride Across America. Funny guy. He shared some stories with us of things that have happened so far since they left Santa Monica on 3/28. We put up a few pictures of our time with them on our "Picture Page." Check it out.

Due to an overwhelming demand for copies, "Marathon Love" is now available for purchase on DVD. Send e-mail to Lynjameracing@sbcglobal.net to request a copy. $5.00 from each DVD sale will go to Midwest Brain Injury Clubhouse in Chicago.

Lynn and Jamie are now on Facebook.

Jamie's Facebook

Lynn's Facebook

You can also join the group Marathon Love Fans

You can now follow us on Twitter too. Look for JamieParks1.

Here's the interview we did on February 11th, 2009 with Linda Lawson. "A Way With Words"

Lynn and Jamie were interviewed on the Nancy Turner Show on Moody Radio (90.1 FM) on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009. It went great except Jamie said "you know" about 100 times, you know?

Here's the audio of the interview. 2009-02-10Jamie&LynParks.mp3

Here is the official press release and promo put out by Discovery Health Channel (Jamie had to tweak it slightly just to fix a few incorrect numbers).
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Katie Crockett: 240-662-2707
November 18, 2008 Katie_Crockett@discovery.com

MARATHON LOVE CHRONICLES TINLEY PARK COUPLE’S MIRACULOUS JOURNEY FROM A PARALYZING ACCIDENT TO THE BOSTON MARATHON
-- Hour-Long Special Following the Tragedy-to-Triumph Fairy Tale of Jamie and Lynn Parks. Encore Presentation Saturday February 14, at 8 PM (ET/PT) on Discovery Health --

(Silver Spring, Md.)—Just before her wedding day in 1987, Lynn Parks’ dream of walking down the aisle was shattered when a devastating car accident left her comatose and clinging to life. Miraculously, she awoke seven months later to find that her fiancé, Jamie, had never left her side. However, her struggle was not nearly over, as she had suffered a brain stem injury rendering her unable to ever stand or walk on her own again.

Fast-forward to 2008—this amazing husband-and-wife team has now run more than 14,000 miles and completed several marathons—and are the proud parents of a 9-year-old daughter. On Sunday, December 14, at 8 PM (ET/PT), Discovery Health premieres MARATHON LOVE, an engrossing hour-long special that weaves together professional footage with Jamie’s personal home videos to tell a tale of true love, perseverance and the power of the human spirit.

Even during the darkest days after the accident, Jamie’s faith never wavered—and after seven years of grueling physical and speech therapy, he and Lynn finally walked down the aisle on their wedding day. An avid runner, Jamie began to push Lynn in her wheelchair as he ran the one-mile loop through their Tinley Park neighborhood. Soon after, the couple began entering races, eventually qualifying for the ultracompetitive 2008 Boston Marathon.

While the Boston Marathon was a lifelong dream for Jamie and Lynn, they will tell you that it doesn’t compare with another miracle that occurred nine years ago. Doctors had told Lynn that because of her injuries, she would not be able to have children—but in 1999, Lynn gave birth to a healthy and happy girl, Annalyn. As a baby, Annalyn sat on her mother’s lap as Jamie pushed them in more than 50 races. Now 9 years old, Annalyn shares her parents’ passion and often accompanies them on their daily runs.

MARATHON LOVE is an inspiring account of a family coming together that serves as a moving reminder of the power of love and the strength of the human spirit.

MARATHON LOVE is a co-production between Discovery Health and LMNO. For Discovery Health, Wendy Douglas is executive producer, and for LMNO, Ruth Rivin and Eric Schotz are executive producers.

###


 

Annalyn is in Sixth Grade at Grissom Middle School. Her homeroom teacher is Mrs. Griffin.

Annalyn turned 11 on August 23rd. WOW! She is 4 feet, 1 inch tall and weighs 73 pounds. She is now in 6th Grade. She is very talkative and loves to sing and dance. She has a great sense of humor.  She loves to watch Glee,The Amazing Race, Mythbusters, Stormchasers, Dancing With The Stars, iCarly, and Dirty Jobs. Her new favorite shows are on the Food Channel. She watches them all the time. Weird kid.

Our Yellow Lab, Lulu, turned 5 on 8/26. There have been a few times when I wasn't sure she would survive until then (chewing everything in the house, etc.).

Lynn and Jamie crossed a milestone this spring. May 18th was 25 years since we met at a party neither of us was planning on going to.

We have some other important people in our lives who need prayer for various issues. If you have the time throw a few out for Mike, Jason, Butch, Marilyn and Jack.

Jamie's obsessive running streak reached the 18-year mark on 1/28. To keep the streak alive, he has to run at least a mile every day (although he still does 30 miles a week). There have been several times when the streak nearly ended due to the flu or nagging minor injuries (plantar fasciitis, ITB syndrome, broken elbow) and hernia surgery. There was one time where it nearly ended because Jamie fell asleep. He was planning on doing his run late at night around 11:00. He fell asleep in the recliner and woke up just in time to get it done before midnight.

ANNALYN is 11 years old now. We want her to stay like this. Forever.

My youngest bro, Jason, helped set up and design our new website. Thanks, J!

Lynn and Jamie were EACH given the honor of carrying the Olympic Torch when the Torch Relay came through Chicago in January, 2002. It was an incredible experience for both of us.




VIDEO FROM BOSTON MARATHON

There are several videos that we appear in. The first one is here http://wbztv.com/video/?id=61686@wbz.dayport.com . It shows us crossing the finish line. We appear on there about 30 seconds after it starts. Keep watching to see how close Lance Armstrong came to catching us. Next, go to www.youtube.com  and find the "search" box. There are 5 YouTube videos that we appear in. For the first one, type in Boston Marathon 08 Elite Runners Technique. We pass through the shot at 46 seconds into the video. For the second one, type in Boston Marathon 2008-Natick. Starting at 13 seconds, there is an interview with one of the camera guys who shot for the documentary. They show us on screen as he is interviewed for 30 seconds. For the next one, type in Boston Marathon 2008 Get Boston. This video shows us for just 6 seconds starting at 1:15. For the fourth video, type in Vectrix at Boston Marathon. This will bring up two videos. The top one shows us from :15 to :39 and the bottom one (titled "Vectrix at Marathon Weekend") is the best one. It shows the three of us as we came up Hereford Street and turning onto Boylston for the run to the finish line. We're on from the 8:40 mark for a full minute.

ANNALYN'S FIRST 5K RACE

Annalyn ran her first 5K race on 5/4/08. It was in Romeoville. She had trained for 4 months and done up to 3 miles in practice but she was still worried that she would finish last. Well, that didn't happen. On a sunny, somewhat chilly Sunday morning (40 degrees when we left the house), she had an outstanding race. Lynn and Jamie ran with her the whole way and were able to videotape her entire race (we had an HD camera rigged to Lynn's wheelchair). She paced herself well considering that this was her first race. Her first mile was in 10:57 on the only slightly uphill section of the course. Mile two went by in a brisk 10:42 (what goes up must come down). Towards the end of mile 2, she started to get a side stitch and some pain in her left shoulder. This can be frustrating for any runner knowing that you still have nearly half the race to go and now you have this pain to deal with. Jamie has run many races so he knows that a side stitch, while annoying, can't do any physical harm to a runner. Annalyn's frustration was showing because she started to get a bit whiny. After praise and encouragement didn't work, he had to resort to a little "tough love" to help her through. Mom was being "good cop" the whole time which helped. Since Mom and Dad had run this race several times before, they knew how many turns were left and how close to the finish she was getting. As you get near the finish, the course makes a left turn away from the finish line and the runners go about 50 yards, do a u-turn and head down a straightaway to the finish. At the left turn, Jamie handed off the camcorder to his friend Mitch Alvarez who ran it to the finish so Jamie's brother, Jason, could put it on a tripod and get the three of them as they came to the finish. It worked perfectly. Once Annalyn knew she was near the finish, the whining stopped and she started smiling. Mile 3 was done in 11:07 and she covered the last 1/10th of a mile in 58 seconds.

She crossed the finish line in 33:45 to a roar of cheers from the crowd. She got flowers and a stuffed animal from Grandma and got to pick where she wanted to go for lunch from Mom and Dad.

Her best prize came shortly after the finish when it was announced that she came in 3rd place in her age group.

She got a medal on a ribbon and wouldn't take it off for two days. And as far as her worry about finishing last? She was 112th of 132 Overall.

A NOT-SO-WELCOME CHALLENGE


THE BOSTON MARATHON STORY

What a way to run your last marathon. And what a place. We ran the pinnacle of all the marathons, the Boston Marathon, on April 21st. The weekend didn't start out too great when on Friday, the 18th, Lynn and Jamie got some bad news. Jamie's brother, Jason, was in the hospital with some unexplained internal bleeding and might not be able to make the trip with us. Jason did a boatload of work on this project and deserved to be there. His doctor asked if he could wait a day and fly out Sunday so they could do some tests. He would miss our course recon that we planned for Saturday and early Sunday but his health is more important so we said OK. In his place, at least initially, would be Ruth Rivin, the Executive Producer of the documentary for LMNO Productions. Ruth called Jamie Friday afternoon and said, "Can I crash on your couch tonight?" Not exactly the accommodations she's used to I'm sure. Jamie said, "Sure." Ruth got there about 11 PM.

Saturday 4/19

We had to get up at 4 AM because we had an early flight and we had to deal with getting the new chair on the plane. Jamie's sister-in-law, Jen (Jason's wife) had spent 1 1/2 hours bubble-wrapping the chair the night before to make sure it wouldn't be damaged on the trip. Southwest Airlines didn't like that. They needed to inspect it to make sure there was no damage. Jamie finally signed off on the fact that it was new and undamaged. Our flight was uneventful and after we landed, we took a shuttle to the Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire (where we landed). We got our 12-passenger van that we rented and drove to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Natick, Massachusetts. It was about 17 miles from Boston and very near to the marathon course. We checked in and then went to downtown Boston to meet up with the rest of our documentary crew. We knew Kathy Williamson, the director, because we had worked with her years ago on the "Miracle Babies" show that featured Annalyn when she was born. We only knew Melissa Tallerine through dozens of e-mails that we had sent back and forth trying to get things set up ahead of time. I think Jason's wife thought he had a girlfriend with all of the Melissa e-mails he was getting every day (just kidding-she's married too). We also met the Director of the Boston Marathon TV Production. He was very nice as was Adam, our liaison to the BAA (Boston Athletic Association). Boylston Street (where the finish line is) was closed down so we decided to do our run for the day right there. Annalyn ran with us and we did a mile and then walked over to the place where we were planning on sneaking our daughter onto the course on Sunday. We want her to finish the race with us as a family. The documentary crew thought it was a great idea. I doubt that the BAA would agree but since it's our last marathon, we want to go out on a high note. The place we picked was on Commonwealth Avenue, about 30 feet before you get to the turn onto Hereford Street. It's about 1/2 mile from the finish but we knew that Annalyn could make it. 1/2 mile is nothing to her anymore since she had already done 3 miles in training for her first 5K that she did on 5/4 in Romeoville. After a nice meal with Ruth and Kathy, we were done for the night. Earlier in the day, we got the official word that Jason would not be out of the hospital in time to join us in Boston. We were bummed.

Sunday 4/20

This was our sleep in day. We got up at 8:15 and had room service breakfast. Then we went down to the hotel fitness center and Lynn walked on their treadmill and did some stationary bike work too.

Top left to right: Jamie's Dad Charlie, Kathy Williamson,

Jamie, Annalyn, Melissa Tallerine. Bottom: Ruth Rivin and Lynn.

We met the crew in the lobby and drove to Hopkinton. That's where the race starts 26 miles west of Boston. We parked at a church and walked to the start area. A very nice police officer actually stopped traffic both ways on Route 135 so LMNO could get some video footage of us looking at the start line. We did pictures and video and went back to the cars by the church. We hadn't run yet so we decided to just do it right there. We did a mile and Kathy shot footage of us running. We met more of the crew there, including Dan Franks, our Boston go-to guy. He has run Boston before and worked in the TV production of the race too so he was invaluable to us in this project. There was an idea to use a lipstick camera to get a point-of-view shot from the chair as we came in to Boston at the end of the race. The camera was very small but the battery pack and monitor weighed too much. So that idea was out the window. It was decided that an HD camcorder would be taped to the left handle of the chair and Jamie was instructed to turn it on with a mile to go in the race. We left and went back downtown so Jamie could get his race number and packet. Then expo was at the Hynes Convention Center. David Willey, the Editor-In-Chief at Runner's World Magazine (and a great guy), was giving a seminar on "Real Runners" at the expo and Lynn and Jamie were invited weeks earlier to drop by and be introduced. We found the room where he was and went in. There were 6 athletes on the stage, each with a fascinating story about survival or perseverance. We were about 10 minutes late so we hung out in the back. David saw us and asked all three of us to come up. He introduced us and mentioned some of our running accomplishments. He asked us a few questions and then a few questions from the audience were taken. One person asked the panel who their favorite running partner was and most everyone said their dog, a relative, a friend or their music. Jamie said that it's great having Lynn and Annalyn as running partners but as much as he prays during runs, his favorite partner is Jesus Christ. After the seminar, we went to pick up our race number. It was temporarily misplaced but eventually found by Barb Mancuso, the head of registration for the marathon. She got us our race shirts and then we went and met Dick and Rick Hoyt.

Dick and Rick are the guys who we got the idea from about Jamie pushing Lynn in her wheelchair in races. They've done nearly 1000 races together since 1977 and this will be their 26th Boston Marathon. Dick said that he thought they'd finish somewhere around 4 hours because he has been so busy lately that his training has suffered. We took pictures and video and met their "people," Kathy Boyer. Jamie and Kathy had been e-mailing each other over the last few months since we knew that we'd be doing Boston and were getting a new racing chair. They were all very nice. Jamie got Dick to sign a poster and one of their books. Dick didn't want Jamie to pay for either but Jamie insisted and we settled on $20 for both. After that, we met up with the crew again and did a little souvenir shopping for us and Annalyn. We went back out and walked to the spot where Annalyn would enter the course. The barriers were up but not very high. That would make it much easier to pick her up and over them. Back to the hotel and just as we were about to leave to go to Olive Garden for Jamie's carbo-loading dinner, we realized that the keys to the van were locked inside. Ruth called AAA and the guy was across the street at a local mall. He was there in about 5 minutes. He got the lock open with a coat hanger. We stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for Jamie's pre-race breakfast (2 bagels). We had a great dinner with the folks (Mom and Dad flew with us). After we got back to the hotel, Melissa gave Jamie an index card that showed where the cameras would be along the course and which side of the road to be on at certain points.

Monday 4/21

It's Boston Marathon Day!!!

We had to be at the start area at 5:30 AM to meet up with the camera people and assistants who would be working with us at the race. That meant we had to get up by 4:00 (3:00 Chicago time). Jamie had his pre-race breakfast of 2 bagels and Gatorade. We drove out to Hopkinton and met the rest of the crew at a different church from yesterday. The crew and the LMNO girls worked out all of their logistics as we waited in the van (mind you, the start wasn't for another 4 hours). It looked like the weather was going to be ideal for the race. It was overcast and about 45 with no wind and no rain. After everything was coordinated with the crew, we drove back to the church we were at yesterday (sensing a theme here?). The crew wanted to film us getting ready before the start so they shot Jamie putting the racing chair together, Lynn getting out of the van and into the chair, Jamie preparing his energy gels and water bottles and Annalyn joining them for the walk towards the start. We did that in one take. There was a little pre-race interview and then a near disaster happened. In the bigger races, runners wear a little black plastic timing chip that they tie to their shoelace. It's like a little homing device that triggers a sensor when you go past various points along the course. This sends the information to a computer so they know that you completed the course and didn't cut it like Rosie Ruiz did a few years ago. Jamie thought he had put his in a bag with all of the things he would need for race day. It wasn't in the bag, it wasn't in the van, it wasn't at the hotel and no one had it. This was bad. No timing chip means no official time or place in the marathon. Jamie asked Kathy, the Director, to send someone to the start line area to see if there was a way to replace it. After a tense 15 minutes of waiting while we drew closer to the race start, we were told they could replace it. Jamie was given the new chip and in the process of putting it on, he stripped down to his racing shorts. As he took off his sweatpants, he could see something tucked into the top of his sock. You guessed it. The missing timing chip. He said that he had absolutely no recollection of putting it there. So he put it on and double-knotted his shoelace so it wouldn't come off. He kissed his Mom and we headed to the start. Many people came up to us to wish us good luck. We saw Dave McGillivray, the Race Director, and thanked him for helping to make this happen. We hugged and kissed Annalyn and Jamie's Dad and they went up to a spot in the bleachers where they could see us off. We lined up behind the wheelchair racers along with Dick and Rick Hoyt and Mark and Amanda Collis (the other pusher teams). For some unknown reason, Jamie was visibly shaking as we waited for the gun. It wasn't nerves or weather. John Kerry was there and made the rounds wishing the athletes good luck. He fired the starter's pistol and we were off. The first few miles of the race are mostly downhill so it's important not to go out too hard or you'll pay for it later on when you hit the Newton Hills. We ran the first 1 1/2 miles with the Hoyts and Collis' but before we knew it, we were way ahead. The spectators along the sides of the road were amazing. They really can carry you through some tough spots. It was hard to concentrate on running with all of the waving and smiling that we were doing. It was really fun, though. It was like we were in a 26.2-mile parade. After we ran in Toronto and qualified for Boston, we agreed that we weren't going to worry about our finishing time in Boston. We were going to have a good time and enjoy ourselves. We had a cameraperson filming us from the back of a motorcycle for the first 6 miles for the documentary. Jamie was doing well physically but it was hard to get a good idea of just how well we were doing with our pace. With all of the rolling terrain, you just had to try and maintain a good rhythm. Jamie's goal was to try and hold a 7:30/mile pace until we got to the Newton Hills at 16 miles. Miles 2-4 we did in 7:12, 7:05 and 7:04. The motorcycle pulled off at the 6-mile mark to go back to the start. The cameraperson had to be back to film that. Just about this time, the elite women passed us. Apart from the start, this was the only other time that we were shown on the TV coverage. As the women passed us, Jamie applauded them. Jamie was taking his energy gels every 5 miles and staying hydrated with water and Gatorade. Lynn was enjoying the scenery and the chair was rolling perfectly. At around the 8-mile mark, the motorcycle guy pulled up alongside us. He had nothing left to do after he dropped off the cameraperson at the start. So he decided to come back to us and ride alongside us. That was cool. Jamie told him that we had people ahead filming for the documentary who would be running along with us while filming for as long as they could. He suggested that the motorcycle guy ask one of them if they wanted to ride and film from the bike. By this point, we were nearing the 10-mile mark. That was where Jamie's first instruction was on his index card. He was supposed to stay on the left side of the street because there was someone positioned on the right in a building to film us for the show. Not long after that, we went past our first running cameraperson. He stayed with us for maybe 50 yards or so before peeling off. The course took a dip down a hill here and you could see an uphill section ahead around a curve. What you REALLY couldn't miss was this huge wall of sound. We were probably 1/2 mile away but we knew it had to be Wellesley College. Wellesley is an all-women's school and they have a reputation of being very loud and enthusiastic as the marathon runners pass by. As we neared Wellesley, we saw Melissa, our other running cameraperson. Melissa is a Lead Producer of the documentary but also a marathon runner and triathlete. She ran with us and filmed as we went past Wellesley. Jamie moved over to the right side of Lynn's chair and held on with his left hand so he could slap hands with everyone lined up behind the barriers. That was fun. One of those pictures is on the Runner's World website in their Boston Marathon coverage section. Just after we passed Wellesley, the motorcycle caught up with us and there was Melissa on the back grinning from ear to ear. Not only was she getting a ride to the finish but she was going to tape us while doing it. That wasn't planned at all. We were just past halfway and the Newton Hills were coming up so Jamie just concentrated on staying within himself and conserving energy. The gels and liquids were working perfectly so far but the worst was yet to come. The first hill you hit when you get into Newton is a long, gradual incline that's not too steep. It goes over Route 128 and leads you to the first turn on the course. Yes, I said the FIRST turn. In fact, in the entire 26.2 miles, there were only three turns and the last two are in the last 1/2 mile of the race. You make a right turn onto Commonwealth Avenue right by the Newton Fire Station. At Mile 18, you hit a nasty hill that is fairly long and steep and makes you wonder just how bad Heartbreak Hill is. That was still 2 miles ahead. Jamie had a hard time keeping the chair going forward on one section that was really steep but we got over it. He was just trying to keep an even effort and not overcook himself. We got a respite of maybe a mile before we saw the 20-mile mark sign. Heartbreak Hill dead ahead. There aren't a lot of hills in the Chicago area so we don't get to train or race on many. There is one on Western Avenue in Joliet that we've raced on that is actually worse than Heartbreak Hill. It's very steep and just when you think you've topped it, it kicks up again even steeper. But that is in a 5-mile race. Heartbreak Hill is 20.5 miles into a marathon, right at the point where the majority of runners "hit the wall." Jamie has played that game a time or two so that's why it was so important to stay hydrated and keep using the energy gels even in the early part of the race when he felt good. For lack of a better word, Heartbreak Hill sucked. Jamie has a habit of praying during his training and racing and the prayers were a huge part of making this whole thing happen. Well, the prayers were flowing fast and furious on Heartbreak Hill. He kept looking at his feet and praying to just keep them moving forward. He wanted to do this race without stopping but it was very close to happening here. It seemed like the top would never come. The spectators REALLY pull you through here and the cheering lifts you up. It felt like it took 10 minutes to get over it when it was probably 3 or 4 but we made it. Before you get to celebrate too much, you're going downhill and holding back on the chair is murder on the triceps. We knew we had 6 miles to go and no more huge hills so now it was time to make sure we finished. Jamie was taking water from the aide stations along the course and pouring it on his head to stay cool even though it was only in the mid-50s. The crowds grew even thicker as we neared Boston. We had a camcorder duct-taped to the left side of the chair and Jamie was supposed to turn it on and hit "record" as they went past the Citgo sign with one mile to go. This would give the viewer the perspective that we had as we neared the finish. The 25-mile mark was at the top of a small rise on an overpass. Jamie thought this would be a good time to start the camera so he could concentrate on his next project, sneaking our daughter onto the course. We went underneath Massachusetts Avenue and we knew that Annalyn was not far away. We came up from under the viaduct, went around a small curve and saw a bunch of orange hats waving along the barriers. These were the Discovery Health Channel hats that our crew was wearing. We knew that Annalyn was with them and Jamie's Dad. We pulled up to the curb and Jamie lifted Annalyn over the barriers and said, "Let's go to the finish!" This was about 20 feet before the second turn on the course, from Commonwealth onto Hereford Street. We don't know if Annalyn got caught up in all the excitement or if Jamie was just slowing down but it seemed like she was flying that last 1/2 mile to the finish line. She held onto the left side of the chair while Jamie held the right. The cheers were so loud it almost hurt your ears. We made the last turn onto Boylston Street and you could see the finish line 4 blocks away. Our 26.2-mile parade was nearly over but we were going to enjoy every last moment. And we did. This was one of those moments in life that you want to freeze and last forever. We were briefly misidentified by the race announcer as the Hoyts but he corrected himself before we finished. We knew that Lance Armstrong was not far behind us because his name was called out too. With about 100 yards to go, we all raised our arms for the finish line photos.

The three of us crossed the finish line in a moment that we'll never forget. Jamie stopped his watch and it said 3:25:45. Not bad considering how much we were enjoying ourselves. WE DID IT!!!! We ran the Granddaddy of them all, the Boston Marathon and finished as a family, as the Parks Family Racing Team. Oh, and we beat Lance Armstrong by 13 seconds. After we crossed the line, we got our finisher medals and headed to our pre-planned meeting point, the Jury Hotel. It was 5 blocks from the finish but we were so stoked that it didn't feel like it. Jamie realized that he actually didn't feel sore. This has never happened in any of our other marathons. Thanks NuBound! Dozens of people congratulated us as we made our way through the crowds including Dave McGillivray, the Race Director. Melissa found us and taped us walking to the hotel. After freshening up a bit and making a few cellphone calls, we found Jamie's Mom and Dad and did much hugging, sweat and all. There was a big group from the Discovery Health Channel that came out to cheer us on and we saw many of them there at the hotel. The crew wanted to do one more interview to get our post-race reaction and thoughts. The very last question we were asked was, "So now that you've run and finished the Boston Marathon, is this truly going to be your LAST one?" Jamie said, "The ONLY way we'll ever do another one is if we run it with Annalyn."
 

We would like to dedicate this achievement to Jesus Christ. Special thanks go out to Jason Parks, Ruth Rivin, Kathy Williamson, Melissa Tallerine, Dan Franks, Jerry Davis, Marty Ozinga and the guys at A Step Ahead Prosthetics. Without all of their efforts this never would have happened. Jamie would like to thank his Mom and Dad too for making the trip to Boston and shlepping around town with us even though it was physically demanding on them. And an EXTRA special thanks to our awesome daughter, Annalyn.

YOU ROCK!!!

We retired the old racing wheelchair on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008. We finally got a day with temps in the low 50s and decided to go out and do Annalyn's long run for the week outside. It was 2 1/3 miles. It took her 25:05 Jason was there to capture it on tape to possibly be used in the documentary. The Lord was really watching out for us because it started raining right after we finished. We ended up doing nearly 8600 miles with that chair. Later that day, we put the new racing chair together. It looks sweet.
                    


On 2/12 of 2008, Lynn, Jamie and his brother Jason flew out to Long Island to A Step Ahead Prosthetics where they were presented with Lynn's new racing wheelchair. Wow! The seat looks like something out of a Formula One race car and has a 5-point safety harness. It has an adjustable height in back for Jamie to find a comfortable level to push the chair. All Jamie had to do was add the water bottle holders in the back and a place for his energy gels. We took it out on a test run with Amy Palmiero-Winters (world-class marathoner now training for the Olympic Trials). Very smooth ride. Lynn loved it. Jason was along to shoot all of this for the documentary (see next paragraph). LMNO shipped an HD Broadcast-ready camera for him to use to shoot some extra things for the show. He has also taped us on the treadmill (Annalyn too) and singing with the church choir. We had a heck of a time trying to bring the new chair back home. Even after taking wheels and the front fork off of it, it was still bigger than is normally allowed for a checked bag. After pleading our case with the ticket agent at Southwest Airlines, we were allowed to bring it home with us.

A very cool thing happened on 2/7 of 2008 when we got the official word from Ruth Rivin at LMNO Productions that they will be shooting a documentary about us (tentatively titled "Marathon Love") for the Discovery Health Channel. It will show us training for and eventually running in this year's Boston Marathon on April 21st. It will also include footage of us receiving, tweaking, modifying, training and ultimately racing with Lynn's new racing wheelchair that was put together by A Step Ahead Prosthetics in New York.

Our Runner's World issue turned out great. It was the December issue of 2007 and there was a great picture of us running with Annalyn and a wonderful story written by Gail Kislevitz of Runner's World. There was a picture of us in the current February 2008 issue. It's a small one from the Heroes Awards Banquet at the bottom of David Willey's column. There's a short blurb about us in the Heroes Awards wrapup on Page 75. There's also a brief mention of us in the March '08 issue explaining how A Step Ahead Prosthetics is making Lynn's new racing chair for free.

Well, we did it! We needed to break 3:30:00 at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon on 9/30/07 to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Our training said we should finish somewhere around 3:15:00 and we came in with a time of 3:15:24. Not without a few anxious moments, though. Then again, we ALWAYS have anxious moments when we're doing a big race.

New video/slide show presentation of the Toronto Waterfront Marathon put together by Jamie's brother, Jason. Check it out here.

Toronto Marathon 3.wmv (may take a couple of minutes to load).

We did an interview with the Globe and Mail (Canada's equivalent to USA Today). It turned out surprisingly well. Usually, when we do a phone interview, the reporter gets a few things mixed up. Not this time. Check it out on the "Articles" link.



THE TORONTO STORY

The story starts on Friday, 9/28/07, when the three of us drove along with Jamie's brother, Jason, and his family 10 hours to Toronto. We actually checked in to our hotel after midnight so technically it was Saturday when we got there. On Saturday we picked up Jamie's Dad from the airport (can't imagine why he didn't want to drive with us). Then we all went to the Marathon Expo at the Convention Center so we could get our race number (602) and timing chip for the race. We went back to the hotel so we could do our workouts. Lynn and I did a 1.8 mile tuneup running around the block 4 times. A guy pulled up next to us during this and said that he saw the article that was in Friday's Globe and Mail. It was very well written. One of the best articles ever done about us.

We met up with Lynn's brother, Mike and his wife, Rosalee and went to the CN Tower. That was awesome. Up until a few weeks earlier, it was the tallest free-standing structure in the world. On one level, you can stand on a plexiglass floor and see all the way to the ground. Kind of freaky. Not for Annalyn, though. She was walking on it, lying down on it for pictures and even jumping on it. Weird kid. We went out for a nice dinner afterwards and then went back to the hotel to get a good night's sleep before the marathon on Sunday. Here's where the mistake was made that led to anxious moment number one. Jamie has a habit of not setting his watch forward or backward if we travel to a different time zone. He just figures out what time it is by adding or subtracting from his watch or alarm clock. He brought the clock from home because he didn't want to risk something happening like the hotel alarm not going off or the front desk forgetting to do the wakeup call. The plan was to get up at 5:00 A.M. Toronto time and meet up with Jason and his family at 5:40 so we could be down at the start area by 6:00. That would give us an hour to take care of anything else that might come up before the race started at 7:00. So instead of setting the alarm for 4:00 (5:00 Toronto time), Jamie set it for 5:00 and went to sleep. Everyone was still asleep when Jason knocked on the door at 5:40. Much freaking out ensued but we all managed to get ready in record time and we got to the start area about 6:25.

Jason and his family dropped us off along with Jamie's Dad and Annalyn. Jamie's Dad, Jason and his wife, Jen were all going to videotape Lynn and Jamie at several points during the race. Jason had it all planned out ahead of time with maps and directions for everyone. After we were dropped off, Charlie (Jamie's Dad) and Annalyn had to go and find a good place to tape the start from because they weren't allowed in the start area. Lynn and Jamie found the start corral where they would begin from (the organizers have runners line up according to their projected finish times so we went in the 3:10-3:20 section). It was 6:35 and Jamie still needed to find a port-a-john to "take care of business" before the race. Lynn stayed at the start and Jamie searched for one with a short line. This is where anxious moment number two comes in. The lines were snaking around all over the place so Jamie just picked what looked like the shortest. He kept checking his watch and at 6:55 there were still maybe 15 people in line in front of him so he had to bail out and head back to Lynn (who was freaking out herself wondering why Jamie wasn't back yet). Jamie was convinced that he would have to find a port-a-john at some point on the course and stop to go. There wasn't even time to stretch before the gun went off.

Weather was absolutely perfect for a race. It was 58 degrees and overcast with no wind, humidity or any chance of rain. The temperature did climb as the race went along which became a factor closer to the end. A marathon is 26.2 miles long but in Canada, they use the metric system so the course was marked every kilometer (42.2 of them). This actually worked in our favor because it made it easier to deal with mentally when your next split is coming just over a half mile away. The plan was to try and hold a pace of 4:30 per kilometer for as long as possible. This would have us finish around 3:10:00 but we knew we would probably slow a bit towards the end so it would give us enough of a cushion to get our goal of 3:15:00. Our training went so well that we knew that barring something unforseen, we should easily break the 3:30:00 that we needed to qualify for the Boston Marathon. A few unforseen things did come up. Of course they did. They always do. The course is advertised as flat and fast and a great Boston qualifier. I would amend that to say that it's MOSTLY flat. There were a couple of good-sized hills that we had to deal with. Nothing huge but just long and gradual. Then there were the train and trolley tracks. They don't mix very well with wheelchair wheels. I'm guessing that we went over at least 50 sets of these. Last, but not least, were the speed bumps. Out on the Leslie Spit (a landfill at the east end of the course), there were probably 15-20 speed bumps that we had to go over on the way out and then again on the way back.

The start corral that we were in was maybe 50 yards from the start line so it took us about 20 seconds from the time the gun went off until we got to the line. There were over 2000 runners so it took us some time to weave our way through and find some open space. Several runners told us during the race that they had seen the Globe and Mail story. We held our 4:30/kilometer pace pretty well until we got out to the speed bumps. Jamie was alternating drinking water and Gatorade while taking an energy gel every 5 kilometers (3 miles). That system worked well until the temperature started to rise and the water and Gatorade bottles started to empty. Starting at around 35K (21 miles), Jamie started taking Gatorade from the volunteers at the aid stations and then dumping water over his head (a few times dousing Lynn). It was around here that our pace started to slow slightly. We started doing kilometers closer to the 4:40-4:50 range. Then with about 3 miles (5K) to go, Jamie's left calf started to cramp up. ANOTHER anxious moment. We were well inside our Boston qualifying time so unless he stopped and walked the rest of the way, we would make it. He told himself that he wanted to run the whole way so he just put his head down and kept pushing. The spectators along the course were wonderful, cheering us and our fellows runners along. There were a few sections where there weren't very many spectators and from 37-40K was one of them. The cheering can really help you through a rough spot physically so with no one there to cheer, it made it all the more difficult to deal with the leg cramps. There was a very rough patch of road on this section also. It was like asphalt with gravel mixed in. We went over the same stretch near the beginning of the race and got through it OK, but when we hit it near the end, it felt like we were going through sand. Jamie was praying a lot during the race but it was more focused at this point. It started to seem like the kilometer flags were farther and farther apart as we got closer to the finish. We saw Jamie's family videotaping at I think 9 points along the course. From 40K to the finish (the last 1 1/2 miles) was back downtown so there were many more people cheering on the sides of the road. That helped a lot. At about 200 yards to the finish, there was a small rise in the road. Nothing major but as we went up, it felt like someone had reached down and grabbed Jamie's left calf muscle and twisted it as hard as they could. It nearly brought Jamie to a walk momentarily but just then he saw Charlie and Annalyn cheering. That was all he needed. They crossed the line in 3:15:24. Lynn's brother, Mike and Jamie's brother, Jason were there to congratulate us.

We hooked up with everyone else within a few minutes and high fives were all around. Lynn and Jamie each called their moms and Jamie called his brother, Mike to let them know we made it. We needed to get back to the hotel because, even with them granting us a late checkout because of the marathon, after 1:00 we would be charged for an extra day. We still had to shower and Annalyn had to do her run (she did 1/2 mile Saturday and Sunday on the street behind the hotel). Traffic was pretty congested as we headed back and then about 2 blocks from the hotel, police were turning cars around because the street ahead was blocked off for a Walk For The Cure fundraising walk for breast cancer. Jason dropped off the three of us and we walked (Jamie limped) back to the hotel. Annalyn did her run and we had just enough time to shower and load up the van before 1:00 rolled around. We met up with Lynn's brother, Mike one more time at a nearby McDonald's for lunch and then hit the road back. Charlie had taken a shuttle back to the airport for his flight back to Chicago. 10 hours later, we were back at home sweet home.

THE END

We got some very cool news on 8/20/07. It started with an e-mail I received on 8/14 from Runner's World Magazine. It was from Katie Neitz, their Senior Editor. It said, "We are amazed by your athletic achievements and think your story would be inspiring for our readers to hear. We'd like to cover you in an upcoming issue of Runner's World." She went on to say that a writer would be contacting us in the near future for an interview. Well that's pretty cool. It gets better. We didn't hear anything for nearly a week but then one morning, I got a phone call from Debbie Maish, the Church Secretary at our church, Eagle Rock Community. She said that there was a message in her voice mail from a woman at Runner's World who was trying to contact me (if you scroll down a bit, you'll see a link to the Eagle Rock website. She must have gotten the phone number from that and called Debbie). She said in the voice mail message that she had been trying to e-mail us and they kept getting returned to her. It turns out she had been adding an "s" to our e-mail address and it kept getting sent back to her as "unknown." Later on in the day, I was able to contact Katie and she said that we would be getting a call from David Willey. She didn't go into much detail though. David Willey is Editor-In-Chief of Runner's World. Maybe an hour later, he called and said that Lynn and I are going to be honored (along with a few others) in their December issue as "Heroes Of The Year." WOW!! They sent a photographer out on 9/13. We did a 20-minute interview with the writer, Gail Kislevitz. It gets even better. On top of that, they will be flying us out to New York City to be honored at their Heroes Banquet on November 3rd. We've received a few honors over the years (Olympic Torchbearers, TV appearances, magazine and newspaper articles), and it's always very humbling. I'm not always sure why these things happen but I think it may have to do with what happened to Lynn 20 years ago. Maybe this is the Lord's way of giving Lynn a little pleasure to offset the struggles that she goes through every day.



In the fall of 2005, we all had been grieving for the people of the Gulf coast and wondering what we could do to help. Well, the Lord put it on Jamie's heart to try and help out in a big way. We organized a 5K Run/Walk with ALL of the proceeds going to help these fine Americans. Lynn came up with the name, the Katrina Relief 5K. It was held on October 15th of 2005 at the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park. We managed to get everyone involved to donate their time, services, materials, or cash so that everything we took in on race day could go out immediately. We raised over $5100 for the American Red Cross. Not bad for a month's planning. We had a couple hundred of our race t-shirts left over after the event so we donated them to the State Of Hope (where the Hurricane Katrina evacuees are staying at the Tinley Mental Health Center).

The race itself went well. We had good weather and because of that, 75 people signed up the morning of the race. We had a total of 172 people registered and 165 participated and finished.

It's very obvious that the Lord had his hand in this project by the way that things fell into place.

On 11/14/04, at the finish line of the Tinley Turkey Trot 5K, Lynn and Jamie crossed the 10,000 mile mark of running together. We started in the summer of 1991 on a lark after Jamie was inspired by seeing Dick and Rick Hoyt doing the Boston Marathon together with one pushing the other in a wheelchair. We trained for a local 10K and finished and now, over 17 years (and several wheelchairs) later, we've made it to 10,000 (now over 14,000). Over 4000 of those miles came with our daughter, Annalyn, riding on her Mom's lap. She's too big now to do that anymore.


Annalyn made her television debut on 5/1/00 on Miracle Babies. It ran on the PAX-TV network. Hope you got to see it. It was great.

Our story was mentioned in the 2/8/00 issue of Variety.

It's a small world again. The guy that edited the TV show out in Hollywood is the son of the receptionist at our former dentist's office.