Sunday, June 12, 2011

Breanna and Jalen Thayer 5k Memorial Run/Walk

Earlier this year we lost a wonderful friend/teammate, Jalen Thayer, to cancer. His dad, Lance, was Sabrina's coach when she ran on a team called So Cal Running Wild. This is the Thayer's second child that they have lost to cancer. They also had a daughter who sadly lost her fight with cancer as well. (Cancer stinks!)

As a tribute to these wonderful children and to support this family we attended the first (inaugural) Breanna and Jalen Thayer 5k Memorial Run and Walk.

The morning started with a torch run. Lance carried the torch for the first 5k of the morning. It was a beautiful tribute to Breanna and Jalen.


After the torch run, there was a kids 1k fun run. It was so great to see the little ones run the entire perimeter of the school and even see some of our friends run an awesome race!


That was followed by the 5k run - split into age categories and by sex.

Sabrina (and Arrianna, also a past teammate and friend) were the youngest of the girls to run. Most of these girls were middle school and high schoolers (Lance coaches at Millikan High School). I was a bit worried about sending her off on a course I wasn't familiar with (or could see her on)...and worried that she would be upset at getting beat (that competitive streak in her). I just told her...go out there and do what Jalen would be proud of!

After what seemed like a very long 20 minutes I finally saw some girls making their way back to the finish line. I didn't see Sabrina....at first. And then, I realized it was because I missed her going by. She was in first place. The tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about how proud I was of her...but even more, about how proud Jalen would have been of her. I'm sure he was cheering in heaven!
Her finish time for this 5k... 22min 44 sec. (Impressive time...even more impressive that she beat high schoolers!)

Arrianna wasn't far behind her...she came in 3rd overall. Jalen would be proud of his girls!

But for now, she will take this success and dedicate it to the Thayer family.

Coach Lance and his Running Wild girls...he is an awesome coach!!


We stayed to cheer for our other friends and past teammates, like "Q" (seen below) and Connor, Hugo, Bailey, Drew, Kyle...and so many others.

Even Coach Louie (Arrianna's dad, who also helped coach the Running Wild team) ran an excellent race. As well as Isa ("Q"s dad)

It was fun to watch the walkers (there must have been at least 150+ walkers). There were opportunities for us to donate to Habitat for Hope, Breanna's gift and the Jalen Thayer Scholarship Fund. A quilt was being put together.

We will always remember Jalen and Breanna and will honor them by "Having Faith...Being Strong".

And I hope this girl will always have the fire inside to run!


Jalen, are you proud?


3 comments:

Cari said...

Amazing! You've got quite the girl there, Amy-Sue! I'm sure Jalen is proud! :)

ashcraft8 said...

So awesome! What a wonderful way to celebrate a friends life. Great job.

Jenny said...

Cancer does stink! How wonderful to have a memorial race. I love that! Sabrina is so amazing!!!