I Won the Lottery!

I woke up to a world that feels upside down. In all that is going on right now it is not necessary for April Fools day jokes. Did my title grab your attention? Did you think I was playing a trick? Well I am not. I found out that I won the lottery this morning! Maybe not the kind of lottery you were thinking. It is not the kind of lottery that would make most people jump for joy, however it did for me. This is a special race that I cannot wait to share.
Six years ago I was sitting around the campfire with my grandparents talking about running. My grandparents were runners. They had completed two marathons and several other distance races during their running years. I had told them that after I had the baby (I was about six months pregnant at the time with my second child) I wanted to train and run my first half marathon. As we talked about races and training my grandpa told me that one race he'd always wished he could have done was the Marine Corp Marathon. My Grandpa is a Marine. I say 'is' because his heart beats Marine, still to this day. His Marine Corp flag flies with his American flag on his pole. He proudly tells everyone that he served his country.
Two years ago my Grandpa was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure. There was still a mission I felt was hanging in the air for him. And so, a few years later, and a couple more kids, I decided that I would run this race for him. I am taking him along this journey with me, and sharing parts of it with you. I am going to spend the next 29 weeks working with my running coach to train as hard as I can to get across that finish line for us. But this is not just about the race. I am also going to spend the next 29 weeks with my Grandpa learning about the Marine behind my mission. You see, my whole life I have known he is a proud Marine. I have known he served his country during the Korean War but that is about the extent of it. When I decided I wanted to run this race for him I also came to another conclusion, I wanted to know more about his time in the Marine Corp, a period of his life I really know nothing about. And so I called him and asked if he would spend the time of my training cycle talking to me about that period of his life. I am going to journal my training, our talks (the parts I can share), and everything else that comes up in the next 29 weeks. This is my story to my next 26.2. This is his story, the young man who signed that dotted line. This is our story coming together as we laugh, joke, cry our way across that finish line on October 25th! Welcome to our story.
Semper Fi