Amazing

We spent Saturday night in Sydney last weekend.

We drove down on Saturday afternoon (having spent the morning buying up goodies at the local fete – more on that to come!) for my amazing sister’s run in the Half Marathon on Sunday morning.  

Fourteen weeks ago my amazing sister Ju - who has never run in her life - signed up to an organisation called Can Too to raise money for Cancer Research. 

Can Too is a non-profit program that matches fitness incentives with a good cause. Beginners and experienced athletes are given professional coaching as part of a team to run in endurance events. In return, participants raise funds that go directly towards funding cancer researchers through Cure Cancer Australia.  It is an amazing cause and she was able to exceed her target and raise $1350.  

After a carbohydrate heavy meal on Saturday night, she left the apartment at 4.20am to make it across to the starting line in Milson’s Point. This is a photo I took of her – in the dark at 4.20am – I am taking this from bed!

Based on a range of complex calculations that involved times and distances and cut off points it was determined that we needed to be standing on Harris Street at 8.30am to be able to see her run past. 

We got there at the allotted time but sadly – although we saw lots of other Can Too runners all in their bright orange vests there was no sign of my sister..... we feared the worst .....

Although Ju was determined to run the whole Half Marathon she had been experiencing lots of ankle, leg and knee injuries over the 14 weeks and it was suggested that she only run the 10km then stop.  So when we didn’t see her coming past we feared that her injuries had got the better of her and we headed into the Oprah House to the finish line to collect her.

As we were walking towards Darling Harbour to catch a ferry we watched as Kurt Fearnley speed past in first place in the Wheelchair Marathon! He is one fast guy!!

It was a truly beautiful day in Darling Harbour. 

And the view from the Ferry to Circular Key was not bad either. 

As we got closer to the Oprah House we could see the crowds. 

Due to the huge amount of people clogging up the transport system it took us over 1.5 hours to get to Circular Key.  As Ju did not run with a phone it wasn't until we got there that we found out that not only had she not been kicked out at the 10km mark but she had made it to the end in the very impressive time of 2 hours and 42 minutes!

She was elated but tired and hungry so we jumped on a ferry back to Darling Harbour where we fed her a big breakfast then took her home to bed!

We couldn't be more proud of her!