Moses Lake moms run charity half marathon

MOSES LAKE - A group of seven working moms recently managed to find time between their full-time jobs, their kids' activities and other commitments to train and participate in a half-marathon.

Anna Griffith, Kristy Hofheins, Dawn Sandhop, Ronda Fuller, Linda McKay, Cyndi Dickinson and Janet Huber ran in the Girlfriend's Half-Marathon in Vancouver, Wash. on Oct. 14.

The annual race took place in downtown Vancouver and nearly 2,700 runners participated. Proceeds from the event went to the Susan G. Komen For the Cure foundation, the Kearney Breast Cancer Center and the Children's Center in Vancouver.

According to race organizers, about $50,000 was raised during this year's event.

Huber said the course began in downtown Vancouver, and followed the river through other sites like the city's old town district.

"It was 13.1 miles of peace and quiet," Huber said. "It was a beautiful course and it didn't rain."

Although the group left their respective families behind for the weekend girl's getaway, Huber said the runners had plenty of support.

A close friend Monica McAtee, drove the group down to Vancouver and encouraged them along the race, she said.

Huber said the group began a 12-week training program in the summer, with the ultimate goal of participating in the Girlfriend's Half-Marathon.

The Vancouver race wasn't their first long-distance running event, she said. The group of friends have been running together for a few years, and participated in the Bloomsday race earlier this year.

Huber said after the 7.5 mile Bloomsday run, they began to look for another race that would be even more of a challenge. After hearing about the half-marathon in Vancouver, Huber said the group was excited about running for a cause.

Griffith said the group was also excited since the race catered to women. Although there were some male runners, the Girlfriend's Half-Marathon provided a fun atmosphere for female runners.

"It was fun because we were all girlfriends running together," she said. "It was empowering to do the race with other women of all shapes and sizes and have that support."

She said race organizers even provided fun things like chocolates for runners after the race.

Griffith said that training for the run was a challenge since all of the runners had full-time jobs and had to juggle running with family commitments. While Huber is an optometrist, the rest of the group is comprised of school teachers and administrators.

"We partnered off to train based on schedules though," she said. "Some ran in the morning at 5 a.m., and some did night runs."

Griffith said it was hard to balance training and family life but all of the runners were lucky to have supportive families.

Huber said the group is already thinking about their next long-distance run. Although they don't have a specific race in mind yet, she said they will begin training again and hopefully find a race closer to home.

She said she hopes other people get inspired to start running as well, no matter what their fitness level.

"Some of the group started out as non-runners, they really had no interest in running," she said. "To go from not running to doing a half-marathon means that anyone can do this."