I RUN 4 Z

The other day one of my beautiful friends suggested I look into a group called I Run 4 Michael for our group Hope’s Seed. I looked at the website and debated about it. Why? Well, I truly don’t know; however, I looked at the site again after a great night’s sleep (finally!  Mighty Z’s alarms went off only seven times), and then I was amazed and excited about I run 4 Michael. This group pairs a runner with a person or child with a disability, and the runner runs for that person or child and their disability. This is a quote from their website:  “The mental and emotional encouragement for both runner and honorary runner is proving to be a whole new level of motivation and awareness.  Runners are able to find a whole new sense of purpose in their running while sharing who they are running for and bringing awareness to diseases and disabilities of all types.”  

I thought this is a great concept, but I needed to try it out for Hope’s Seed to make sure this would be something amazing. My first thought (I know, I know we have been down this road before): “I can’t use Mighty Z, she isn’t special needs!” And then once again I had to slap myself and say to myself, “Momma, wake up and smell the coffee!  You hook up your kid to life support machines every night, you recently almost lost her, and she has had to have 2 cardiac pacemakers implanted within less than a week; what does it take for you to realize Mighty Z has special needs?!?”  Honestly I have no idea why I wrestle with the fact that Mighty Z is indeed a Special Needs child-- I just do. I think that it is hard for us all to say those words.

Anyway, after I jumped off the bus o’ denial, I slowly made my way back to the bus o’ reality and asked for a match for Mighty Z. It only took a couple days for Mighty Z to get her Mighty match.

The very day Mighty Z was matched with Beautiful (Beautiful is the name Z and I came up with for our beautiful runner), Beautiful ran for our Mighty Z and CCHS (Congenital Central HypoventilationSyndrome). Beautiful made a shirt, letting all who saw her know that she ran for Z.

Mighty Z was super excited about this and had me send Beautiful encouragements along the way as Beautiful ran in the Spartan Race and the Zombie race. Beautiful sent Mighty Z pictures from the race letting Mighty Z know that she was thinking of her as she ran.

The interesting thing is that Beautiful struggles to breathe!  She has COPD, so a common bond was instantly built between our runner and Z.  (Although technically Z doesn’t struggle to breathe, she just doesn’t breathe…. but the breathing thing is the common factor.)

I Run 4 is an amazing group, and Mighty Z and I feel a since of pride that Beautiful runs for Z. Not only is Beautiful spreading awareness about our Mighty Z she is also spreading awareness about CCHS (Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome ) which is what means the world to us.  

Mighty Z always say's "there isn't and ounce of quit in her" and Beautiful shares that same tough girl motto


 Edited by Emily Joy Minich

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