The Run for Mattie Team just completed the Gasparilla ½ Marathon on February 24th. Our Fund-Racing team for this race consisted of 7 members who all worked hard to “Run for Mattie”. As a team we raised over $2,500 for this race. We were just amazed at the generous donations that kept pouring in and actually continue to come in. Again, I am left with no words to express just how grateful we are to have such amazing friends.

Running 13 miles for Mattie is an experience I will never forget. In just 3 hours, I went through such crazy emotions. I have been asked how the race went and all I can say was it was good and bad and emotional. I will not lie; I have never run 13 miles before. The best I could do to train for this was 4 ½ miles, so going into Sunday morning I was really nervous but excited at the same time. Jim promised he would run with me. I know that was hard for him as he has run ½ marathons before and can run them in less than 2 hours. My goal was under 3 hours. The beginning went really well, probably too well. Between mile 4 and 5 we started taking walking breaks but we were running more than walking. Around mile 7 I told Jim “I can do this”. At mile 10, Jim gave a pep talk and I was motivated to finish it out. We were on track for 2 hours 40 minutes… then my body took over and gave me the middle finger. I was done. I was cramping, I had the chills, I was hungry, and I started crying. I was a done deal. Mile 10 took us 22 minutes to complete. Then Mindy texted me that she saw a sign that read “Kids with cerebral palsy think running is a gift”. The tears came again and we pushed on. When Tasha handed over our Run for Mattie banner as we were about to cross the finish line, tears came poring out. So, it was not pretty, almost pathetic really, but who cares. I did it. I did it for my beautiful daughter, Mattie, in hopes that she will one day realize that I would do anything for her.
Here is what a few of the Run for Mattie Team said about the day:
“I was so honored to be able to help you guys in any way that I can. It definitely was an emotional experience due to the fact that I almost cried in mile 1.”
“It was truly the most meaningful and emotional race I have ever run. I am so glad I was able to run it with everyone. It really touched my heart to have Mattie as my motivation throughout training and during the race. I was so blown away by the generosity of my friends and family too. I have always known I have been blessed with such great people in my life, but to see them all answer the call, when I asked them to, still had me in awe. I am so grateful to have been able to help Mattie and as with all things in my life, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support and love of my generous family and friends.”
“Running this race for Mattie was an amazing experience. Running is an ability so many people take for granted and my hope is that one day my sweet niece will be running along side of me. It was such an honor to be part of Team Mattie!!”

Here are a few pics from the race.

A very amazing friend put together a Raffle for Mattie recently. We were raffling off a personalized signed game day jersey from Rob Gronkowski, the New England Patriots tight end. With 115 entries into the raffle, the winner was Ian Baxter, who by the way, is a huge Patriots fan. Ian had the shirt personalized with his kids names 🙂 Too Cute! Click this link to see Mattie pull the winner:
http://youtu.be/F9Qm87yGCUI

The past few ABM sessions have gone exceptionally well! We could not be doing as many sessions if it were not for all of you. Mattie has a big 5k race coming up, Run for Hope. Have you checked it out? All of the proceeds from the race will continue to fund Mattie’s ABM sessions. If you can’t be there April 27th, please consider donating or becoming a sponsor, we still have a few sponsorship spots available.

I know I have said this a hundred times… but… we appreciate the generosity shown to our family. You guys rock and with your support, Mattie is going to go far!