50,000 Posts: THANK YOU BT from TriAya, Yanti, Melon Presser

(Surely someone will get it ... )

To BT, and BTers, you literally saved my life, more than once, and in many other ways you always elevate the quality of that life. You carried me through dark times—so often going WAY out of your way to do so—but moreover, you’re my sun and also my necessary toilet humor every day. THANK YOU.

You are living examples of this sunlight; I watch you try, believe, do, BE, and pass it on. I see your first X-mile run; your illnesses; your first iron race; your children being born; your heartbreaks; your improvements; I watch you shine when it’s fair and when it’s dark.

You show me, by who you are, that the impossible is just one step farther, and that beauty lies not so much in achieving it, but in each step you took to get there.

And you’re just so much damned fun, and strangely practical, too.

For that, a giant juicy group {MELON PRESS}, also known as a {MELON PILE}.

If I named names, this post would be like one of my race reports but without all the fun pictures. So just a few:

Most of all for Lucy, BunnyRunner, jdwright, cami bee. I still cannot think of you without tears coming to my eyes, nor race without thinking of you and being tremendously grateful for whatever happens, simply because I am there. You are always remembered. You are always carried with me in the same ways you carried me. I hope you are resting in the same peace, love, and laughter that you lived and gave.

To the Manatees: I say it, whatever IT is, every day a hundred times, so you don’t need to hear it 101th, especially since you’re a big chunk of the 50K. I love you, I thank you, I need you.

To Ron and the mods: Thank you for keeping this, a very odd sacred place of sorts for me, going. Much of it’s thankless, and you can’t be thanked enough, but anyway—THANK YOU.

These are the outside changes. I’ve lost more than half my bodyweight, but the inside changes I’ve gained can’t be measured.

Thank you all for helping to make that happen for me … and countless others.

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