I'm thankful for a lot of things this year. Good health, wonderful friends and family, a job I enjoy with coworkers who are fun to be around.

But what I'm most thankful for this year is my one-man race support crew: Matt (aka the BF).



You see, Matt's not a morning person. In fact, he hates the mornings so much that he takes full advantage of his office's flex time policy and doesn't start work until 9:30 or 10 most mornings.

But on the weekends that I have races, Matt drags himself out of bed at the crack of dawn to come support me.

He pried himself out of bed at 3:45 a.m. on Sunday for the Philadelphia Marathon.

He woke up at that same time and drove me about an hour to the Frederick Half Marathon back in May.

He's willing to travel with me to races in new places and doesn't mind if we plan a vacation around a race.



He sacrifices a lot of his weekends so that I can do something I love.

He's come to countless other races when it's been either really hot or freezing cold. He's stood in the rain and the sleet waiting for me to finish.



For my marathons and half marathons, he waits around for hours. On Sunday he waited in the cold for almost five hours for me to finish the race.

He's my biggest supporter.

He waits with me in the porta-potty lines and assures me I'll have a strong race when I start to get nervous.

He's perfected capturing a finish line picture on my finicky camera, and he remembers to take lots of pictures before and after the race so I plenty of options for my race recaps.





And on training days when my motivation is lacking, he's the first one to kick me out of bed and encourage me to go run.

So this year I'm thankful for Matt and all he does to support me in this crazy sport I love.

Don't forget to thank your own race support crews this Thanksgiving. Without them, our race day experiences just wouldn't be the same.