Run

2:25.27

As I came back out the shoot I saw my mom, dad and friends and they were going wild. One of them started running next to me screaming my name. They said I looked great when I ran by them...looks are deceiving because my legs did not know what the hell to do haha.

The chute brings you onto the boardwalk along the Cape Fear river. As I tried to figure out what I was doing a nice lady ran up beside me, put her hand on my back and said "I work with a lot of CF kids..." and then she said some more nice things that were just what I needed to hear. At this point I didn't feel like I was moving at all, my mouth was SO dry, my lungs were trying to figure things out and I had some doubts. About a 1/2 mile in though I came to another team of PPD peeps who went crazy when they saw me. The pic below is from that moment and honestly I'm surprised because it looks like I am actually running! It sure as hell felt like I was shuffling with 2 bricks attached to my feet. Let's talk about feet right now though...apparently I didn't tie my shoes tight enough because now I am the proud owner of bilateral pointer toe bloody bruises that will soon be losing their nails. Yay life! But hey, if that's what hurts the most after all this I'm ok with it!

Back to the race....I got some quick high fives, a water and an orange which I quickly spit out. It looked better on the table than in my mouth.

This crew gave me the encouragement that I needed to get going. That is until that damn hill that you have to go up to get out of town. It was a quick steep one about 3/4-1mile in so I decided to walk up it, along with every other person in front and behind me. From that point on though I didn't walk during the 13.1 once (except through each aid station).

As I plugged along the first 2 miles the temps really got to me. My mouth was still super dry and I felt so damn hot. Out of nowhere a voice from behind says "Emily! Do you need some water?" Sure enough a guy on a bike pulls up next to me with a bottle of water. Really? Was this a dream? I drank as much as I could, he wished me luck and then I thanked him 1,000 times.

The first 4 miles of the run were the toughest for me. Once I got past 4 my lungs relaxed, my legs were back and I was on it; popping salt tabs, gelling up a couple times, and drinking water, Heed or cola at each station.

The best part of the run was seeing all 5 of the other PPD Hereos. Mary was the first to fly past me. She was the running portion of a 1/2 relay team and is in some kick your ass shape. I got a good chest bump from Eric and Garrett and then I saw my buddy Willie at a turn. Other Team PPD peeps were all over the course so that was fun to see them and share some encouraging words, like these from Lee as he stormed past "Rock Cffffff!!!" These are what got me through this hot hot run. The miles between 6-10 were great with more encouraging words from fellow runners. One guy even ran up behind me saying "Hey! You got any of those blue pills???" He must have seen my PPD speech on Thursday...referring to Blue Lightning, aka Kalydeco.

At mile 10.5 I caught up with Katie (who also has CF, is a PPD Hero, kicks ass, and did the run portion of the 1/2). She was hacking a little and we were both not loving the heat so we decided to bring it home together. We joked and laughed until we came to the best moment of the entire race. In front of us was her brother and dad at a bar around mile 11.5, with......BEER!!! Her brother handed a frothy ale to her and at the same time we both yelled "We can't share!!!" (CF patients have to be careful with cross contamination issues) In the blink of an eye her dad had a stout in my hands and we both took giant swigs. Holy cow, that was heaven in my mouth and we are convinced that is what got us to the finish!

We got through the last longest mile of our lives and headed down that same damn hill I walked up in the beginning. The PPD crew was in the same spot screaming as we went by. When we got even closer to the finish Scott was there waiting...he said "let's do this together"...so yeah, that was amazing! Scott and I joined hands and the 3 of us with cystic fibrosis headed toward the finish line, kind of hearing the announcer say our names and that we were PPD Heroes, we ran across the finish line together with our arms held high!!!! My mom, dad, our friends from Florida, the other heroes families and more PPD crew was at the finish yelling for us. It was AMAZING!

Scott and I hugged it out and I thanked him for a lightning (not blue) fast swim. David from PPD was at the finish line and presented us with our ~~medals~~ BLING! Such an incredible feeling.

(Katie and me)

I felt better after this race than any 4 hour ride or long run I did during the 13 weeks of training. Sticking to my nutrition guide (thank you Sage Rountree!!) was definitely the key to success.

At the finish I refueled with my Recoverite that my mama and pops did up for me and then I just soaked it all in. Amazing amazing amazing...amazing.

A sports reporter for the Star News paper was waiting for me at the finish. He'd spoken with my parents already and also to Scott who has a story that I still can't believe. You can read the article

Cystic fibrosis, love of fitness bring competitors together for B2B here.

This was by far the most challenging experience of my life and I still can't believe I completed it especially finishing 30 minutes faster than my goal time. I could go on for hours and days about everything that happened during the whole thing. The awareness for cystic fibrosis and for clinical trials was really highlighted this week. I cannot thank the team at PPD enough for this opportunity. The energy that the team of Heroes brought to Wilmington is still blowing my mind. I think we need a reality show...

Stay tuned for more pics of the race, the events, the news coverage and some hilarious stories that happened after the race!

When's the next race??