~~Girl power!

Tonight I wanted to share a bit......

about my amazing sister-in-law....who is sort of a hero...to me,

but also to my girls.....'cause my girls have a mom who, on a good day,

runs her 3 miles and then has a couple glasses of wine in the evening to celebrate.....whoo- hoo!

My sister-in-law runs ultra-marathons - as in 100 miles through the mountains marathons......

but the most amazing thing is she WINS them!  Besides just being a super cool human-being,

she just kicks ass!

This weekend she is running the Hard Rock 100, a race that she has won {for the women}

three times.  She holds the women's course record for both ways the race is run

{clockwise and counter clockwise}.

Check out this video of her last year going through an aid station

{that is my handsome brother in the backwards baseball hat,

who happens to "pace" her for the last 50 miles!}:

It just so happens that last year she led the race overall for 92 miles!

Yep, she was officially beating the boys!

In uncharacteristic fashion, she had significant physical difficulties in the latter

stages of the race, cramping and falling - however, she finished second overall

and set a new women's course record.

Diana in 2009

The next day when she became extremely ill, my brother took her to the hospital.  Turns

out that she was suffering serious dehydration and her kidney's were not 

functioning.  She was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Denver

where she spent the next month being treated for kidney failure.

I am happy and relieved to say she recovered and resumed her running and 

training.  What can I say?  This race is her passion.

And this year she is back.

We are proud of Diana, she is awesome and we are praying that this weekend

she runs the race of her life and above all else, finishes in good health!

** My brother wrote a fabulous article{"Pacing Diana"} about her race that was published in the June issue of Trail Runner magazine, if you are interested, you can read it here.