Real inspiration and motivation...

Today my wife and her sister went shopping and she came home and gave me these wrist bands. They will serve as a great reminder to me as to what real strength and real motivation are. Strength is not the ability to run far, it's not in training, it's not in racing, it's not in running at all. Strength was what my Mom showed when she faced breast cancer several years ago. She fought it and she's winning, she's a survivor. THAT is strength. Many years before that (when breast cancer was a certain death sentence) her best friend and boss faced breast cancer. She fought hard, she fought for a long time, she fought unspeakable odds against her and she won. My good friend and neighbor is currently fighting that fight. She is reminding me every day what strength is, what persistence is, what never giving up is. Compare this to running a marathon for the first time and the marathon sounds like a pretty simple thing to do. One week from today when I'm on the course in Napa I will be wearing these wristbands in honor of these women and the far too many other that have, are and will face this disease. They are a lesson to us all and hopefully one day no one else will ever have to face this again. I will proudly wear these wristbands to show them my support and to remind myself that however hard it gets, running a marathon is a small challenge in the big picture.

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