THIS GUY

This is Chris, one of my big brothers

He's great

He and I have been wanting to run a marathon together for years (ever since I ran my first marathon 4 years ago)

He wants to set a good example for his kids and only run marathons on Saturdays (which really limits what you can run)

When I found out the Seattle Rock n Roll marathon was on a Saturday, he jumped right on board and sacrified a lot to get up here to run it with me

He also had run only one other marathon before and wanted to improve his pace by one whole minute (which is huge)!

He trained for 4 months to drop his time down to an 8 minute mile

He was totally prepared for it

I also wanted to drop my pace by one minute

But I was not prepared for it

After 4 months of intense training, and excitement to reach his goal

The morning of the race

He gave it up

For me

He decided he'd rather cross the finish line with his sister than reach his goal time

So he stayed with me the entire way

Pushing me

Encouraging me

And at times, just running next to me

At one point, he practically carried me

And we did it

We finished

And in a better time than expected

I couldn't have done it without him

I hope his sacrifice was worth it to him

Because it meant more to me than I can say

Love you, Chris!

Thank you just doesn't seem enough