Missoula Marathon and Youth Home Run 4 Kids - Inspiration

I'm not a runner. I've always wanted to be a runner - just didn't think I had the stamina for it or the athletic build or whatever excuse I could come up with to get out of it. It looks like the perfect form of exercise: cheap, travels anywhere, not much gear.

Living in Missoula we certainly see people venturing out for their dose of health in all kinds of weather: Watching runners in a beautiful, bigsnowflake-fall along the Kim Williams Trail. Watching the trail-runners up Blue Mountain or Mt. Jumbo.Watching the Sunday morning runners training for the Marathon. And each year my husband and I have watched some of the finish line fun at the Missoula Marathon - each year I've felt goosebumps and butterflies in my stomach for all these people running, for all the people watching, for the energy and excitement the event creates - simply by bringing people together to do this one simple thing: run.

Last year my dear friend, Kim Anderson, started posting a blog on training for the Missoula Marathon and doing it for a young woman who was a resident at the Youth Home. She, like me, is not a runner. She has now completed a marathon - and folks, she's a runner.But, more than that she's an inspiration. She joined the Youth Home Run 4 Kids team for the Missoula Marathon. The team commits to walking or running the half or full Missoula Marathon ... and raise money for the Youth Home kids. All the money goes to the kids to help them with the basics we take for granted: clothes, toothbrush & toothpaste, backpack, school supplies. But I learned that this money does something more - something every child should experience: a birthday party, birthday gifts, holiday gifts,little surprises. Things that I just might grab in the aisles of Target for my kids and not think twice about. SO...I'm reading Kim's blog about these kids and the half marathon and I think: I can do this. If they can live through the hell they've had to face at age 4 or 6 or 12, I can run a silly little race and help them out.

I can't wait to cross that finish line for my own personal "bucket list". But more importantly, I also can't wait to help these kids. Because they're my true inspiration for competing in the half this year.
~Angie Tranel