ALCW member Judy Casten finishes the Chicago Marathon in 5:14

Judy and her wonderful supporters

The Chicago Marathon on 10-13-13 was a family outing for ALCW member Judy Casten of Hinsdale. 

 Judy reports:

Sons Boze and Damien, Damien’s soon-to-be-wife Mo, Haj (came in from SF), Tom, and I all finished!  Boze’s wife Kara and Sarah (Dedi’s wife) ran the St. Charles marathon 2 weeks earlier.  Estimated cumulative distance run by  all of us during marathon training:  6017 miles!  Gill and Kara led the Where’s Waldo support team which included Kazem and Naser (Afghan Fulbrighters at Loyola), Esau (Peru) and friend TJ, and not pictured, granddaughters Gwen and Audrey, Dedi, Sarah, Ken and Ruth Frazier (Albuquerque), BJ Chimenti, and Marcos (new friend from Venezuela).  Unbelievable.

It was a milestone for me.  In March, as I think most of the Assistance League crew knows, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.  I’ve now seen docs at Northwestern, the Mayo Clinic, and early this month Tom and I went to a world conference on Parkinson’s in Montreal.   Clinicians and researchers agree that the only thing that seems to slow down the  disease is exercise.  Well, this qualifies as heart-pumping exercise!  I think a second marathon is Extremely Unlikely…  half marathons are easier! That said, it was a beautiful cloudless day, a beautiful finish line, and a perfectly wonderful gathering of family and friends. 

Tom and I ran most of the race with a group we’d trained with in Chicago, and finished in 5 hours, 14 minutes.  I was 5^th out of 14 women in the  70-74 age group.  That’s one item checked off my bucket list!  

Tom and Judy Casten