Marathon Relay - 3rd edition

On November 15, we competed as the 3rd edition of our chacara marathon relay team in the Paqueta Esportes Marathon Relay. It was a difficult one to prepare for (I had to find substitutes for 3 of the original team members during the week), but we managed to pull together a good group and concluded the race! The team, L-R: Rodrigo, Jander, Kleiton, Marcio, Wilson, Renato, Edson and myself. Jander & Edson are currently in the program; the others are graduates, except for Kleiton, Marcio's brother. I made jerseys with the logo of a local TV stations's campaign: Crack, Don't Even Think About It, along with the chacara's official name Centro de Recuperacao Jovem. These guys are living proof that it is possible to overcome addiction, and I think we got the message across, as the jerseys and our race made people take notice!

Here's yours truly kicking things off, turning in his 5.3km in just over 23 minutes. Not too bad considering my inconsistent training this spring. To top off my day, I preached at the 3pm worship service at the chacara...God gave me the energy to do that because I was pretty wiped out from my race as well as handling all the logistics of our team race organizations and transport.

We were blessed to have some of our Rotary Club friends join us - below: Adriana & Emanuel, Claudia & Mario. And of course, Paulo Renato, constant presence at our events, was there as well.

Sometimes the real victory is just finishing the race! We didn't get any trophies for our finish position, but the medals proved that we ran in such a way as to win. Congragulations guys and thank you Lord for letting us run!