Michelle Heart Cam: Live for 175 Day 3
This may have been one of the emotional days of Live for 175 in the past 10 years.
There were some big moments on Monday during Live for 175. Last year one of the most emotional moments happened the day we met a woman named Anna, who her family nicknamed "Aunt Shakes." The day she met Keke, she came up to him and raised her hand. He instinctively gave her a high five and she responded "domestic violence, child abuse just touched you." As a child, one of her mother's boyfriends ripped her arm out of its socket and it led to a hand tremor she's dealt with ever since. At some point her mother had abandoned Anna and her sister for two weeks in a trailer with no food and no water. Her dad eventually got full custody of the girls and kept them safe. Anna didn't speak up about what had happened that day until 2004. Since then she's chosen to rise above what happened to her and used it as a superpower to help others. Anna stopped by Live for 175 yesterday and was a completely different woman than we met last year. She recently quit her job as an RN to volunteer at the MDA Camp in McCall for kids suffering from Muscular Dystrophy and started working out with a trainer to improve herself. Her positive energy is absolutely contagious!
Anna reminds me a lot of someone who we lost this past June. If you have come out to any of the years of "Cycle to Break the Cycle" you may have met Mandi Smith. Keke and I knew Mandi for years, but didn't know why Live for 175 was so important to her until 2016. Last night her incredible group of friends blocked out our cycles for a "Memorial Ride" in her honor. There's a lyric from my favorite band, OAR, from a song called "Patiently" that instantly came to my mind when I looked out on Fountain Square and felt the love from her friends on Monday night. The song's about losing a good friend and says "amazes me how you can bring us all together." You can feel Mandi's presence in the photos from that ride.
See pictures from it as well as some our friends from Fleet Feet Meridian, Team Run Boise, our Mutt Madness winner Orion, Team RWB, Ada County Sheriff's Dept Transport, Rolling H Ladies, Freedom Fitness and more in the album below!