Written by Mindy Shores

I have been working out for several years now and due to the unrelenting persuasiveness of one of my closest friends and workout partner, I decided to run in my first half marathon (13.1 miles).

In December 2003, the decision was made that the Mini-Marathon in Indianapolis, Indiana on May 8, 2004, would be the race of choice - mainly because it is the largest half marathon in the nation, and if you are going to do something, you might as well do it big, right?

I got me a training schedule and started thinking .."hey, I have about 4 months to train, I can do that". Up to this point my longest run was 6 miles and my weekly mileage was about 10. I had to get up to 11 miles in one run and a weekly mileage of around 20. Training was going ok until February. At that point I was REALLY getting sick of running and my thinking turned to "God, I still have 2 more months to train, I don’t know if I can do this or not."

In search of motivation, I thought of my friend (the persuasive one mentioned above) who ran the Chicago marathon for her first time last year, and had collected donations for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

I wanted something more personal and dear to my heart, and I thought of my son, Tyler. I decided to collect donations for Baby Home #1 in Ekaterinburg, Russia, in honor of him. My husband, Jay, and I adopted Ty from Ekaterinburg, Russia, in June of last year. We couldn't even imagine life without him and he is the absolute light of our lives. We are truly lucky to have been blessed with such a wonderful son and this would allow me to give something back and say "Thank You!"

I had the idea but didn't know how to proceed with the donations, so I called Tina Hazelip from FTIA. She gladly informed me that since FTIA is a non-profit agency, the donations would be tax deductible. A letter also was needed to accompany the donations stating the designation of the monies. With that information, I collected $560 dollars for Baby Home #1 in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and was very proud to run in honor of my son.

I finished 8608th out of 30,000 runners, with a time of 2 hours and 10 minutes and had a blast. My next race is in September, the half marathon in Dayton, Ohio. Consequently, the fastest woman ran the Mini-Marathon in 1 hour and 12 minutes, her name…..Albina Ivanova, 26, from Russia.

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