Run for your life, run for your life, run for your life…

Tomorrow is the big day!!!  The Rattle Me Bones race is finally here!  With it’s largest registration ever, over 3,000 runners will do their thang tomorrow morning as we mark the event’s 19^th year.

After I missed last year’s race, the Rattle Me Bones race coordinator, Kent, visited me in the Ottawa Hospital’s Trauma Unit.  He brought me my race shirt, which I had missed the opportunity to collect.  Yah know…being hit by a car, having a few surgeries, trying to survive, my schedule was full.  

But, this year, I made it!  I got to pick up my own race kit!  This year, nothing's gonna stop me.  Check out my parents and I in our beautiful yellow race shirts:

Kent has since mentioned that – upon seeing me in the hospital that day – he would have been surprised if I could stand by as a spectator at the 2012 Rattle Me Bones event.  But Kent’s colleagues at the Ottawa Hospital made sure I could do more than that.

The RMB event – being so close to Halloween – is a great opportunity to dress the part.  My Dad is looking particularly stylin’ in his pumpkin hat.  I myself will be dressing up as, you guessed it, my rattled bones.  I opted not to don your typical skeleton costume.  Mmm, running in a polyester-rayon blend?  I’ll stick with my lulu.  My Mom and I revisited Halloweens and tap dance recitals past, and spent hours sewing ribbons on my running outfit to mark my rattled bones.  Each ribbon has the names of my sponsors on it.

On that note:  Thank you to all my sponsors!  Friends, family, friends of family, gym-mates, Chris & Moerae Solutions Inc (I owe you about a thousand thanks, and at least that many cookies)…  I will definitely take all the good energy you’ve given me along the way tomorrow!

It's cookie mania in here!

What a thrill it will be to run by the Rehab Centre on the home stretch.  Less than a year ago, my parents wheeled me through its doors in my wheelchair.  My physiotherapist, Mireille, and her student, Fred, treated me with so much care.  They helped me build back some muscle and mobility, they taught me to stand and walk.   I worked with them pretty well twice a day for months, while they rooted me on and on and on.  I even heard they could be spotted going up and down staircases on their bottoms in the Rehab Centre – trying to determine if I could do the same.  I will be blowing kisses their way as I RUN by tomorrow.

In the earlier days, I also had another physiotherapist close to my heart.  Janet, what countless wonders you did for my body and my mind.  You made “can’t” and “won’t” the only things I’ll never do.  Here’s Janet moving me along.  That leg leash was ingenius, p.s..

I also really have to thank my lastest phsyio, Kathryn, for taking me through this next strengthening phase.  I can never argue with Kathryn   Going up stairs two at a time?  Mmmkay.

I certainly feel the pressure to do well tomorrow; to prove to myself that I can take anything life throws my way, and to thank my family and the Ottawa Hospital’s staff for getting me this far (go team!).  I have done some research about avoiding pre-race jitters and on running a good race.  My goals for tomorrow are to:

1) repeat a mantra

2)  imagine you’re running on hot coals to improve cadence;

3)  lose yourself in the music;

4)  HAVE FUN!

Actually, I always have a mantra to repeat during a race.  Obviously this time it’s going to be the Rattle Me Bones tagline, which mean so much to me:  Run for your life.

Believe me, I will.