Ready To Run 20 Miler 2011

It is less than one month before I take on the challenge of the Chicago Marathon for the second consecutive year. Also for the second straight year, I will gage my fitness level and readiness by participating in the CARA Ready To Run 20 Miler three weeks before the marathon. This year it will be on Sunday September 18. In order for me to complete this task, I will need to find someone willing to run twenty miles with me. If I can not, I must find a couple individuals who want to each guide me for half of the miles. That is where the amazing Jennifer Pfaff comes in to help me. Jen, who received her first taste of the guiding thing last year at this very event, offered to once again be my guide for at least ten of the miles. I then needed to find another person to volunteer for the other ten miles. As the event neared I began to wonder where I would find someone, but once again, Jen provided a solution by offering to ask her friends. A day or so later, Liz Bilitz reached out to me and offered to guide me for the first half of the run then hand me off to Jen to take me the rest of the way. I am looking forward to meeting Liz for the first time on Sunday morning. I will meet her in the same way I first met Jen in person. I truly love participating in these events and the way in which so many wonderful people come into my life as a result of me needing guides to be my eyes for training runs, marathons, and triathlons. Some of the individuals who have gone on to be very important influential friends in my life were men and women I first met because they volunteered to guide me. In some of those cases, they would introduce themselves via phone or email, but I would not meet them until they picked me up at the airport when I would travel to their city or I would first meet them when I would pull up to their front door after flying halfway across the country to race in an event. I look forward to meeting Liz. I already know she is a spectacular woman. I hope she and I get along because I have a very good feeling she is also a spectacular athlete from whom I could learn so much. The only question which now remains is am I ready to run?