Phew, what a day. Another early morning wake up call at 3:45am but once again, I was incredibly grateful to be out before the sun came up and enjoy as much breeze and coolness that we could. The sunrise was absolutely incredible over the cornfields today. 
Today was dedicated to all of my fellow MS Rockstars who are fighting the challenges of living with MS right along with me. It’s a fight every minute of every day but it’s all in our attitude and mindset. You all keep me moving and give me hope that we WILL find a cure.
Today was definitely a day that built up my mental toughness. I could definitely feel my legs getting stronger. My friend Jamie wrote me a card for this morning and the first thing in it was “pain is weakness leaving the body.” That’s exactly what I told myself all day long. Thanks, Jame! My middle sister sent me a challenge to think of a memory of each chapter of my life while I was running today which kept me occupied for awhile and also gave me some good laugh out loud moments! Thanks, Morgs!! My youngest sister had her students that she works with make some encouraging signs and cards which definitely made me start crying. Thanks Lolen!
We finished 13 miles by 9 am and it felt awesome!! Thank you all for posting, texting, emailing any orange that you were wearing. Keep it coming!!
While the flat roads are awesome, a challenge is there is very little shade. So when it is blazing hot and no breeze it can be very challenging and take every ounce of mental strength that you have. Heat and MS don’t work well together for most people and I am one of them, but thank goodness for my crew team that took care of me. Kendra ran the entire day with me which was incredible and Tim was awesome with the ice, food, finding shady spots when possible, and applying biofreeze to my legs!!! I couldn’t have done it without them today.
Sometimes this was about at much shade as we could find.
The last 5 miles were by far the hardest miles I have ever experienced running or really doing anything physical. At about mile 22 I was ready to curl up in a cornfield and call it quits and then I thought about all of the other incredible people I have met over the past 11 years who are fighting this fight with me. So I quickly inhaled some strength and exhaled a lot of weakness and pushed through. It was probably one of the best feelings to know that we just kicked some Ohio backroad bootay in the blazing hot heat which means we are kicking some serious MS butt.
Things I am getting used to after 3 days of running on back country roads in Ohio:
1. The smell of cow manure and dead animals
2. Seeing more dead animals than people
3. Using cornfields as port-o-pots
4. Embracing every bit of shade possible. It starts to become a game after awhile. Run until you find shade (that’s why we ran most of today because there wasn’t a whole lot of shade to be embraced).
5. Truly appreciating the incredible farmland. Being able to see for miles is not something you can do in a lot of places and when you truly take time to embrace the quiet beauty, it’s incredible.
All I have to say is the love and support from so many of you is just incredible. You truly got me through my day today and will be the reason I get up in the morning. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!!
This was another quote that got me through my day…
I feel this sums up what facing the daily challenges of MS can be like. Embrace what you can do and go live it up today!! Love and sweaty hugs to you all!
Fit Phillips 