"Well behaved women rarely make history." -Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Very often, the way we live our lives and go about our daily business, as commonplace as it may seem to us, speaks volumes and increases awareness in ways that are more profound and more effective than in deliberately planned speeches, huge conferences, or billboards and advertisements. I can illustrate this with two examples of my recent airport travels (racing wheelchair in tow). For pictures of what my racing chair looks like, please see the home page of this site and/or the photo gallery. Essentially, it’s a long, awkward hunk of aluminum and titanium on wheels.

Tonight I had the exceptional honor of being inducted in my high school's Hall of Fame. I must say, this is one of the coolest accomplishments I've experienced in my adult life. These are my roots! In my years wheeling the halls of that place, I would have never thought that life would bring me here and to this day.

I just had the best sushi I've ever had in my life tonight. Please see: http://drkhaliah.blogspot.com for details.

With a smirk,
Cheri

You'll find this blog entry coming to you from Yangshuo, China, a small city in the south central part of the country, nearest the border to Vietnam. It's been about a week since I last sent an update and I know that a great many people have been dying to know what happened with the marathon, how I felt, how Closing Ceremonies were, etc.

HEY!

Tonight we raced the 800 and I placed....drumroll....drumroll....FOURTH. Indeed, it has been the Games of fourths. Does 444 have any cultural significance in China? I think it means "you will live a long and prosperous life, grasshopper." Tonight, post-race, I'm sitting on the second floor of the USA building (the only place you can get wireless internet around this joint), playing Guess the Flavor of the Jelly Belly with a couple of teammates. Dr. Pepper really does taste like Dr. Pepper.

Beijing 2008 website:
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRMP/ENG/Schedule/AT.shtml

New York Times Paralympics section:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/paralympi...

US Paralympics website:
http://paralympics.teamusa.org/news/article/6637

Universalsports.com
(official daily coverage, plus TV coverage in October)
Article with a mention:
http://www.universalsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=23000&ATCLID=...

YouTube video of our crash in the 5000m:

Hey friends, so, I awake this morning to a beautiful day in Beijing.
It's been very sunny as of late and the air is looking much better the
past few days. What tiny invisible particulates are still assaulting
us is a mystery but I'll enjoy some blissful ignorance on that one.

I had day 4 "off" of competition after finishing the 400 m final at
the end of day 3. I still had to plan to run the repeat of the 5000 m,
though, so I was still in my rest and relax mode. I slept in and had
my own little version of brunch in the village cafeteria, then went

Hey there! I've been racing racing racing ... so much has happened. Things have been action-packed and have left me in a position of needing to be on my game rather than typing away on my laptop, so, I'll combine the events of the last week or so here and then can't wait to catch up more with everyone when the dust settles.

Last week BusinessWeek ran a great article on the emergence of new sponsorship opportunities for Paralympians. As someone who has been around this scene for awhile, I can most certainly attest to the progress that has been made in opportunities for funding and support for our nations top Paralympians. My first international competition was in 1998 and I distinctly recall that we had to pay for our own plane tickets....cost prohibitive for many and symbolically important when contrasted to ever-increasing spectrum of support services we now receive.