Vote For Sarah!

Last year I had the honor of sharing a stinky, sweaty van with five amazing women on the Nuun HTC team. One of those women was Sarah who blew me away with her running ability.  She was runner 5 which is the hardest of the entire race, 25 miles with some crazy-ass hills.  I watched this quiet, shy girl jump out of the van and just dominate her first leg.  Fast forward to her third/last leg at which point, I could barely walk and was thinking, how could anyone do 3 miles of straight up climbing at this point?  We passed Sarah in the van and everyone exclaimed, "look how fast she's going, she is owning this hill."  Our disbelief lasted that entire climb as Sarah showed us what a strong runner looks like when they are in the zone.  It was amazing to witness that kind of determination and pure joy when she reached the summit.

I love this pic!  Sarah at the summit running through our power arch. Note - I couldn't even be bothered to raise my arms all the way as she's dominating 600ft. of elevation.

It's no coincidence that after 6 years of HTC, this is the year I am finally tackling Runner 5.  Sarah is pure inspiration in every sense.  As I got to know her I was even more impressed, she's overcome and persevered through a lot in her life.  You can read her very honest full story here on her eloquently written blog (unlike this one.)

Besides being an incredible runner, she's also an incredible mom and woman.  Sarah's son Jack was born with a congenital birth defect.  The strength and determination she has showed to treat her son and care for her family is unbelievable.  And it didn't stop there. Sarah has raised thousands for the hospital where her son was treated all while training for a BQ, which she accomplished at the Sugerloaf Marathon last month.  There are no words to describe the amount of respect I have for this girl.  Sarah is one of nine finalists for the Women's Running Magazine Cover Model Contest.  I can think of nobody more deserving or fit to be a role model and grace the cover of a magazine met to inspire women runners.  If that's not enough, she's also just an awesome person who you'd want to hangout and drink microbrews with, so vote for Sarah!  You can vote daily until July 2nd so set a reminder:

Vote Here: http://womensrunning.competitor.com/cover-model-contest#finalist

And while you're at it, you should buy one of her Embrace The Hill shirts where all profits go directly to the Children's Hospital of Dartmouth.

This is such a horrible picture of me, I may actually be hurting sales.