Meb is my hero

After the Seattle race, we were hanging out in the Safeco Field parking lot with all the finishers. 50,000 people and 9 chairs. Guess which family brought chairs to stick around for the Tonic concert? Just ours. Everyone else was sitting on the asphalt watching the band and recovering from their races.

We noticed a sign that said that Meb Keflezighi was going to be signing autographs at the Sony tent in the finish area. We went over, and sure enough, there was my hero talking to people, and a line of people waiting to talk to him. We rushed over to wait for our turn.

Meb is only my hero!!! He made me cry like a baby when he won the New York Marathon last year. He was the first american in 28 years to do it, and as he proudly pointed to the USA on his shirt and praised God as he finished, I fell in love with him.

In 2004, Meb won the silver medal in the Olympics in the marathon event. He was poised to win it gold in 2008, but fractured his pelvis during the Olympic trials. He didn't drop out at mile 20 when the pain became great--he finished the race and still came in 8th place! After a year of recovery, he came back to win NY in 2009.

When we were talking to him, I told him how I had planned to run that day, but had a stress fracture. He asked me where, and I hit my left hip. The empathy showed on his face and he told me to be grateful, because I will be stronger and faster because of it. Coming from Meb, that means a lot.

He has the best smile. It melts me. And he IS the nicest and humblest guy on the planet. He is our family's hero, and the kids were so excited to meet him. We all watched the NY Marathon last fall on TV, and re-watched it. And watched his finish at least 20 times. He signed pictures for us, and personalized each one, with mine telling me to not give up because my injury will only make me become stronger. He took about 15 minutes with us, as the line to see him got longer.

I didn't think I could love Meb any more than I already did. He's running NY again this fall, and I can't wait to watch him. I want him to kick that Haile Gebrselassie to the curb.