Hooray! We did it! Seattle’s first Free to Breathe event happened on Sunday, and I think it was a great success. Not only did we raise quite a bit of money, but I think we were good educators and advocates for the cause.

The day began – oh so early! – in the dark of 6am, picking up my friend Dana, and caravanning down to Seward Park. Matt and Natalie (my cousin) were right behind. We got to the park and immediately saw Kim, who had graciously given up her warm bed to come help, and started unloading. A few minutes later, and Denise was there with a load of the race day shirts. In a matter of minutes, we were ready to greet the other people who came to help out with coffee and donuts. Coffee was a must — it was FREEZING. But at least not raining.

Tony my race director, and Colleen and Paul from Fleetfoot arrived, and started setting up the PA, the big blow up FINISH arch, and other signage. It turned out that I had forgotten my ipod, so we used Paul’s. And I have to say, believe it or not, AC/DC makes pretty good “getting ready for a race” music. I’m going to remember that for my playlist for next year!

Promptly at seven am, the first “day of” registrant appeared. Yikes. She wasn’t super happy that the race didn’t start until nine, but I think in the end she was fine with it, but I will definitely try to be more clear next year about registration being from 7 until 15 minutes before race time. Pretty soon, more and more people were coming through, and it was all going very smoothly. We started to have a bit of a back up with “day of” registrants, however — we weren’t really expecting a lot — and ended up with almost 100. Which was great, but definitely got us moving. Could NOT have managed it without the great volunteers (including my mom!) who really just took charge and made sure everyone got what they needed and with a big smile.

Finally, it was warm up rally time. I said some of my usual schtick about lung cancer, the National Partnership and Free to Breathe events around the country, thanked all of the volunteers and participants, and turned it over to Dr. Jack West (who is not only my rockstar oncologist — he’s also a pretty good inspirational speaker and well-known as the funniest  guy in lung cancer).

And then, the race was on. I got to do the countdown AND blow the airhorn — which was totally fun — and yes, it is those little things that make me geekily happy –megaphones and airhorns are COOL.

We hustled to get the goody bags out on the tables, and before we were even done, the first runner was in. And the second. And third….

We did the awards ceremony, said a few more words….and then it was all done except the clean up.  We cleaned up, we left, went home.

And I took a nap.