Wow. Always an emotional day, this one was no different. First and foremost thank you to everyone who came out on a brisk Saturday morning to volunteer, run and cheer!!!!
The day started out with a surprise for Brandon and Jeremy for their now traditional pace car drive. Jeremy as always talked that he wants a red Camaro when he gets older so we put out a request for anyone that may be willing to participate. A friend of a friend stepped forward and we had our red Camaro! Big thank you to JK for spending time on Saturday morning driving ourboys around the 5k course. The fun run finished with some strong times with 1st place going to Jacob Bullock, 2nd place going to Robert Craig Jr. We lined up for the start of the race shortly before 8:30am. We had several groups of runners to recognize, a large group of Harris Road Middle school staff and students, a running group of students from Forest Park Elementary in Kannapolis and a running club from Countryside Montesorri. We thanked our sponsors Mary Ballantine State Farm Agency, Team Carneglia Real Estate, Ryan Foot and Ankle Clinic, Fleet Feet Huntersville, Vitamin Water, Niagra Bottling, Odell Rec Sports. We had to make a quick announcement that would prove to be quite ironic about some of our younger participants crowding the front of the starting line and tried to move them back a little bit to make run for the faster runners. Then we were off!!!! With perfect running weather(maybe not ideal spectator weather, it seemed to get a little colder as the morning went along) we waited for our first finishers. Amazingly as we saw the lead runners we noticed the top two runners in view were actually going 10k! From my vantage point I had a view of the battle with Mason Padgett right on the heels of Chas Willimon all the way through the turnaround. Meantime Mike Ham was winning the 5k with a time of 19:20. Here is our ironic turn, the 2nd and 3rd place runners were 15yr old Ethan Pestyk at 20:26 and 13yr old Jacob Ryan at 21:26! Top 3 females in the 5k were Amy Johnson at 21:28, Susan Grewell at 21:35 and 12 year old Riley Axe at 25:11. Ten of our top 17 finishers in the 5k were under the age of 15!!!!!!! Mason Padgett won the 10k in 38:48 with Chas Willimon 2nd with a time of 39:31. Robert Craig rounded out the top three men’s 10k in 43:10. Cheryl Todd won the ladies 10k with a time of 44:12. Rebecca Bocker at 45:54 and Tara Owens at 46:28 rounded out the top female finishers at the 10k distance. Full results here: https://queencitytiming.com/results/default.aspx?event=11881&r=2451
Meanwhile there were a couple of cool things going on. For the last few weeks Jennifer Cavanaugh, Brandon’s assistant at school, and some of his classmates have been working hard supporting this event(along with Ann Wright) by making signs, making bracelets and making Braille bookmarks with Brandon at lunchtime. Saturday they brought the Braille writer outside to our event, Brailling bookmarks for people. Thank you to Terri Bunn for her support as well. There was a pretty good crowd around the table, we joked about labor laws and that we were working Brandon’s fingers to the bone!
A very special presentation from a classmate of Jeremy’s also happened during the race. Gina presented us an envelope of $142 for BDSRA, proceeds from a bake sale that she did during the community garage sale last weekend!!!!! Thank you Gina!
Remember, if you ran this event you were automatically entered into the ROC points series. www.rocseries.com
It is truly a fun day despite all the hard work involved, we always enjoy visiting with old friends and new and being able to say thank you to all that attend. The only regret is that we aren’t able to spend more time with you!!!
Finally, keep an eye out on the photopage at http://jrbphotos.smugmug.com/Spirituality/ourboys/22630623_BZnsKN
Thank you for supporting us with your time, energy and prayers!!
I am married to Wendy and dad to two boys Brandon and Jeremy with Juvenile Batten Disease, a fatal neurodegenerative childhood disorder. I am also active with the Batten Disease Support and Research Association.
ourboysjourney 
What a terrific event! Perfect weather, great people, wonderful support for a much needed cause. I am honored just to be able to take part in it. The Hawkins family is such an inspiration and I am proud to be able to call them my friends! Bravo on a job well done!