As much fun as the whole weekend was, the highlight was Teddy's first event as a captain with MTT. When I first considered signing him up as a captain, the amount of support was incredible. Thank you to everyone who showed your support for Team Teddy.
Teddy's lucky angels were Stephanie and Ashley, along with his proud mama. Both these ladies have known our family since before Teddy was born and were incredibly awesome angels.
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| Teddy & his angels! |
Race day was quite the experience. Teddy's Aunt Lindsay went early with us since we had to be there an hour before the event. Teddy checked out everything before the run, putting in his own version of a 5k. (Let's just say I was grateful to have Aunt Lindsay to help entertain Ted. He's not a captain who's willing to hang in his race chair for long if we're not actually running.)
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| Captain Teddy pre-race. |
MTT does a team meeting to recognize everyone who makes race day possible, as well as share last-minute details and reminders (that we may not remember when we're caught up in the moment). They also do a team prayer with everyone praying for their captain before heading to the starting line.
The teams go to the front of the crowd and get a few minutes before the rest of the race begins. This allows us to get all the chairs spread out and not have everyone tripping over us. Ashley ran like a bat out of hell from the start to give us some space, so we ended up leading the entire crowd for about 3 minutes, which is the first time and longest time I've ever led any sort of a race. It was so neat to be running through this beautiful park along the water with Teddy leading the way.
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| Captain Teddy leading the pack! |
Our lead didn't last forever, as we got passed by the pace car, other MTT teams and then other runners. Still, we knew we had a fast first mile when the guy called out 6:31 as our time. Ashley said my face was priceless because I didn't instantly add the couple minutes we had on the official start time.
Our fast start also meant we nearly killed Stephanie, who was quite the trooper to put up with the sprint start. We took an easier pace to enjoy the rest of the race, with a few walk breaks to straighten Teddy in his chair and share some water that a little girl was passing out with Teddy. Since Teddy's chair had his name on it, we had people cheering for him, and we did our best to get the bystanders cheering for him as well.
We got Teddy out of his chair probably a bit earlier than MTT volunteers expected because we wanted him to walk to the finish. He walked the whole way we asked him to, although he was really distracted by all the people on the side. Having him cross that finish line walking was just incredible!
And, the icing on the cake, was that Teddy took third place for the MTT teams, so he got a cool tile plaque to go along with his medal from the run.
This absolutely was the most fun and special race I've ever done, between leading the pack with Teddy, watching him cross the finish line and being surrounded by family, friends and the rest of the wonderful people with MTT. I cannot wait to be an angel again for Captain Teddy!
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