03:30:34

In May 2002, just after I turned 15, my mom was driving to come pick me up at school when she made a left turn and got broadsided by an oncoming speeding car. While I waited and waited until the sun went down and one after one my friends left she had to be pried from the car by the jaws-of-life (my friend John's dad actually pulled her out) and airlifted to the hospital. Hours later my grandparents realized that I was still waiting in the lobby at my school.
Cell phones had really just become a "thing" so they called my school and had an administrator sit with me in their office. I can perfectly recall that I was annoyed at missing the Roswell series finale.
My grandparents came in and were concerned, but thought my mom had just hurt her arm.
We arrived at the hospital where the nurses and doctors couldn't give me any information. It registered to me that it might be worse than everyone was making it sound. One of the only things I can remember about that night is leaning over the desk, channeling my mother's no-nonsense voice and saying, "She is the only parent I have. I will see her NOW." For all I know, I could have screamed it in her face. Later, my grandparents told my mom that I was terrifying.
Finally, they brought me to her. My tiny, little mommy laying in this hallway bed covered in blood and bandages. Her tooth was missing and she was completely incoherent and had no idea who anyone really was. She had a broken nose, a broken pelvis and sacrum, a dislocated shoulder and was in rough shape mentally because of the impact of her head and the steering wheel.
I could go on about the little details I remember about my life in the following weeks, and the days and hours I've all but blocked out but this is about my mom who was in a wheelchair, then had to use a walker for months.
She packed me off to summer camp and did everything she could to rehabilitate herself. Here she is a few months after the accident standing next to her car.

The doctors told her that she would probably walk, but she would never be a runner again.
She has been running and racing for the past few years and has qualified in a half-marathon for the NYC Marathon twice.Yesterday I spent the day with my grandparents watching her run across the finish line at the NYC Marathon. There she was with a huge smile on her face, cruising down the line through Central Park. I screamed so loud I scared everyone sitting around me and then I started crying. I'm actually choking up writing this right now. I'm so grateful she not only survived, but that she's my mom and she is an incredible woman. I am so proud of her.

Official finish time: 03:30:34*
*For those that don't know a ton about running, this is a pretty badass time. She qualified for the Boston Marathon in 2013.