My Inspiration: We Finish Together

Today I would like to recognize a dear friend of mine, Kim Stemple. Kim is someone who is truly radiant. She embodies love, inspiration and life. She has touched my life deeply in so many ways. This blog post is for you Kim; to the community you create and the love you give to each and everyone of us. Keep shining your bright light and allow yourself to receive. We love you. We truly do “Finish Together”. 

Kim Stemple, a marathoner and yogi, has created and founded, We Finish Together, a way of sharing your strength with others who need it. In life we’re confronted with struggles, obstacles and challenges and it‘s through love and light that we’re able to preserve and we’re able to become even stronger than we were before. Kim truly embodies this strength and this perseverance in her fight with Mitochondrial Disease and progressive muscular degenerative disease. For Kim, her disease has no cure but it’s touching the lives of others that gives her strength. As she states, “…because our friends, not medicine is what keeps me moving forward one mile at a time, one day at a time through the journey on which this diagnosis has taken us.”

We Finish Together is simple. You run a race or complete an endurance event. You receive a medal for the completion of that event. Now we all know that the medal is not just a medal. It symbolizes hundreds of hours of training, tears, laughter, community, love, courage and everything else it took to cross that finish line. Before giving the medal to We Finish Together, you attach an inspirational message. Maybe it’s your mantra you used during training, a motivational quote or something that inspired you at that very moment. Then We Finish Together passes the medal on to someone who’s in need of it.

I received my medal through We Finish Together a few months ago. Kim found out that my husband and I were running the Chicago Marathon to raise money for Parkinson’s disease (Team Fox, Michael J. Fox Foundation) and gave us this beautiful medal with this message. This medal has given us so much strength and love during our training.

Now I want to pass this movement forward. My husband and I are donating our 2014 SeaWheeze lululemon half marathon medals to We Finish Together. We want to extend our love, our strength and our story just like it has been passed onto us. It’s time to come together and create community like we’ve never done before. Who’s in?!!?!

To donate your medals and to learn more about We Finish Together, feel free to e-mail Kim Stemple directly at kimberlystemple@gmail.com, visit the website or Facebook page.