Today I ran Brussels' first ever 10 K run for Breast Cancer held in Tervuren Park. I dedicated this run to: Terry Fox, my grandmother, Heidi, my Mom's best friend, Marie, Zio Franco and our friend and neighbour, Anna. Although they lost their battles with cancer, we can continue to fight on their behalf.

Because I've been running a couple of 3-5K runs a week and one 7K a week, doing a 10K run wasn't too big a stretch for me. It took me 1 hour and 21 minutes. (pre-pregnancy would have clocked about 1 hour but who's counting!) I came in third...last! An unseasonably cold morning of 7 degrees Celsius meant my muscles never really warmed up and pre-race excitement meant a terrible sleep of only 3 hours last night= I am thrilled with how I did. Tiny Baby refrained from leaning on any major organs, luckily, and Daddy and Frunty cheered me on at several points along the route, handing me tissues and energy candies.

The organizers of the event did an incredible job and if you didn't know it, you wouldn't have guessed it was the very first year. Everyone was super friendly and efficient at registration and the volunteers along the route were excellent at yelling support and pointing which way to go. I ran by a volunteer named Charlie twice who was quite worried that I'd give birth today. Afterwards he seemed relieved to see that I had made it...with the baby still on the inside.

During the race, a few women recognized me from my picture and article in the BCT magazine and together we encouraged each other to keep going. At the 3K mark I thought the race was going to be too tough for me what with the cobblestone, several steep hills and muddy paths but I plugged away and found myself almost sprinting the last 1K through the pink balloons in my wonderful shirt made by Daddy. I couldn't get enough fresh oranges at the end and was the only one still standing by the refreshment table half an hour later! Hey, I'm pregnant!

After the race, I saw a woman, about my age, with no hair and the fact that she was wearing the race t-shirt indicated that she had completed today's run. She is one of the heroes of today's race and I hope that this experience renewed her spirit somewhat.

Thank you for the offers to sponsor my run today. Due to geography, it is hard for me to get my sponsorship form to some of you so please feel free to donate directly to www.awcb.org or some charity in your own vicinity if you so choose.

Thank you also for your emails and phone calls of support. I appreciated them greatly. With one more month of pregnancy to go, I will continue to do short runs and stairs/light weights as I do my last stretch of training for the big marathon in June! (providing my doctor approves)

After the race, we enjoyed the sunshine and then had a picnic at the playground so that Frunty could run around too. It got cloudy and cool again so we got back home and made chocolate chip cookies together. They are sitting on the counter right now and it is taking me a lot of discipline not to go over there right now. I am really happy that this race was scheduled during my pregnancy as it has given me a goal and helped me stay motivated all these months. I have learned about discipline through my training and have been rewarded with an excellent pregnancy thus far. I'll have another cookie...tomorrow!