2016 will be a year of running in memory of my mother, Shelley Cronin. In 1998 when I was fourteen years old my mother lost her battle to breast cancer at the age of forty-one.

Now at the age of thirty-three, married and with four kids of my own I feel like I desperately need to do something in my mother’s memory.

Every day as I parent my three sons and only daughter is another day I feel the emptiness of her not being here. The missing of her seems to get worse the deeper I find myself in the trenches of motherhood.

Not only because I wish she was a phone call away when someone has swallowed toilet water or if I can’t remember how long the cut-out cookies need to bake in the oven but most of all because I feel empty and sad about what she has missed. What my kids have missed. Oh how she would have loved them, gobbled them up, and tickled them in their hoochie-coochies (a weird name she named our most ticklish places… I know.)

For the last three years I have been training for and running half marathons. I have trained for three and crossed the finish line at three. I am not a fast runner, I’m someone you will see trotting alongside the road and wonder if you should scoop me up in your car and drive me back home, cover me in ice packs and tell me to never commit that type of horror again.

This year, I am running for a cause and because I am not a very good runner it will take me all year long. I am calling the campaign, Strides for Shelley.

My goals are to run two marathon races: The Flying Pig Half Marathon in May (completed) and The Air Force Full Marathon on September 17, 2016.

I have no idea if I can run 26.2 miles in my own strength and effort but I know with your support, your prayers and the great motivation of Strides for Shelley, anything is possible.

After the Air Force Full Marathon on September 17,2016 I will be culminating this journey at the Cincinnati Race For The Cure on September 24, 2016, an emotional race for sure. I have set up my fundraising page through Susan G. Komens’ Race for the Cure site so all donations will now go directly to my local Susan G. Komen Chapter.

If you’d like to join me, train with me, or start your own team please contact me. It would be a great honor to see so many others make Strides for Shelley too. You can train alongside me near or far.

So this is it. A normal mom, wife, woman trying to make a difference and dream big in memory of someone I love and miss dearly in 2016.

Will you help me make Strides for Shelley?

Race For The Cure Donation Page