I have always been a silver lining kind of girl, so I was not overly discouraged today when my nagging tendonitis kept me from racing in the Red Dress Run.  Like so many other volunteers, I woke up at 5AM this morning in order to arrive in Elizabeth Park by 6:15AM.  From 6:30 to 8:30, I had the great pleasure of working with two fine young people in their twenties.  First of all, Stacie recently began racing and decided to volunteer at today’s run for women’s heart health.  Stacie holds a degree in Theater Management and currently works for world-renown theater, Harford Stage as their business manager.  Stacie prepares and negotiates the contracts that bring the countries finest thespians to Hartford.  I also met Scott, who studies at UPenn’s world-famous business school. Scott came to Connecticut via The Traveler’s Summer Internship Program. I was amazed that Scott and so many other twenty-one year olds from his program had gotten up so early on a Saturday morning to help out in the name of women’s health.  Scott and I worked at the two mile mark water stop where we met John and his two sons.  John’s wife Carrie, who is a science teacher at The Renbrook School and their daughter, Emmie ran, and then came to man the water-stop for the walkers.  Being married to a teacher-runner-mom can be difficult at times, because sometimes we “make” our husbands do races. John and Carrie both finished the Ten Penny Ale Shamrock Du, which takes place in May in Glastonbury, Connecticut. I recently made my husband, Randy complete a 3.5 mile race in Glastonbury that is sponsored by the parks and recreation department.  Nancy Fagan, the Director of Youth Running and Volunteers for The Hartford Marathon Foundation said that John, a business manager at UTC, and his sons have been manning the two mile water station for the past three years. I am thankful that John allowed me to use his photo for this article, and that he kindly introduced me to his wife Carrie. During the last meeting of The St. Paul’s Church Mother’s Group, we discussed the idea that the family who prays together stays together.  I would like to extend this idea to athletics, because we all know that the family that runs and plays together stays together too. Congratulations to all runners and volunteers who woke up early this morning to celebrate women’s heart health!  I hope that your day began as fantastically as mine did.