Plan B is the NEW Plan A

Yes, 60 is the new 40.  And we learned this week that 42 is the new 20!  We feel great and achieved a dream that months ago (and maybe even as recent as a week ago!) seemed impossible!  So our quite unrealistic stretch goal of winning the rach (ha!) was replaced late is Day 6 with a more realistic goal of finishing in one piece (yeah - maybe that should have been the original goal).  We hope we didn't disappoint all of you following our run on Google Earth and seeing us slowly drift back in the pack each day.  Oh well, there is always next year.  But heck....

WE WERE CELEBRATING THAT WE FINISHED THE TRANSROCKIES RUN!!!!!

6 days, 6 stages - 118 miles - 29 hours 15 minutes of running through some of the most scenic areas of the Colorado Rockies!  Up, down, over, under, through - we did it all.

Emotional time at the finish line too - Jeff and Julie made it from Illinois and sure enough were waiting for us when we arrived.  They had a sign for us (which we didn't see as we were coming in, because we were carrying our own 113 For Emmah banner that we made for the finish).  I saw Jeff videotaping the finish as we rounded the final bend, but he said that we he saw we had a banner his hand got shaky and the emotions took over....and well...no real video of the finish.  That's ok though - the race video crew captured the moment and showed it at the celebration dinner last night.  What a nice round of applause the audience gave!

Julie was waiting after the finish snapping as many pictures as she could too.  When I finally saw her, we had been awarded our finishers medals/shirts.  We had a great moment together.  After gathering all of our thoughts - Jeff and Julie presented us with our own finishers trophies.  That means so much more to me than the race medal.  We took a lot of photos together and also with the other finisher friends we had a chance to meet throughout the week.

When I have a chance to recuperate a little more and get more time - maybe on the plane ride home tonite (Saturday), I'll share more about Stage 6 - it was the hottest day of the week, with the most elevation gain.  They certainly didn't make finishing easy on us.

We capped off the evening with the finishers banquet - a chance to recognize the real winners of the week in each of the categories - but we all knew that anybody who finished the event was a winner (us included)!  The closing slide show and video was really great, and Lynn and I were in a number of shots.  It is my understanding that small videos from each day of the run, and a number of pictures as well were posted on the Transrockies website throughout the week, along with a short write up of what we endured each day.  If you have time, take a look - Brenda tells me than I was in a photo on day 1.  I haven't looked at any yet, but there was a great shot in the closing slide show of me holding the 113 For Emmah banner - hopefully that is on-line.

And...if you had been holding off on any donations because if you wanted to see if we would really do this thing....please take a moment to donate to the Gudeman family, or the Children's Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation via the links on the right side of this blog.  Hopefully you believe we worked hard to earn it!

More to come later...thanks for following us!

KEIYH