Mission Day

With just 3 weeks and 1 day to go until the half-marathon (and full marathon for others), today was "Mission Day". Mission Day has a few purposes ...

- To honor the survivors and remember those who we have lost.

- To encourage the participants to remember your patient heroes when you think you can't go on during the race.

- To bring our focus back to the Society's mission to cure leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and Hodgkin's, and to improve the quality of life for patients and their families.

- To celebrate our accomplishments as both endurance athletes and fundraisers.

- To gain a better understanding of how LLS is using all of the funds raised by the Team.

Before starting our run, we went around and shared the reasons why everyone is running with TNT. Since I'm not sure I've done so yet, I'm going to share my story ...

As I've mentioned many times before, my Aunt Goofy was one of my favorite people in the world and I was devastated when I found out she had cancer (Hodgkin's Lymphoma). After an amazing battle, she lost her fight in July 2006, just a few days before I picked up and moved to Orlando to start my internship at Disney's Wide World of Sports. Losing her has really taken a toll on me and those first months were tough. While working the Disney Marathon in early January, I noticed a lot of people wearing purple shirts - the "purple people" as I kept calling them. It seemed as if no matter where there were in the race, people around them were yelling and cheering - I was definitely intrigued. I learned afterwards that they were part of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. While I wasn't ready at that point in time because I was still hurting from our loss of Aunt Goofy, I made the decision that I would do that at some point in my life. Fast forward a few years into March 2009 and I received a flyer from the LLS and Team in Training with some informational meetings. I had been thinking a lot about Aunt Goofy lately so I felt like this was a sign that it might be time. I figured with my crazy work schedule, there was no way I would even be able to make an info meeting but I could. I made it to the meeting and knew it would be perfect to train all summer long while I was "quiet" at work but then was afraid I wouldn't be able to make a race weekend because my schedule is crazy in the fall with work. When I learned that training started the weekend after my last championship of the year in May and the race was two weeks before my first championship in October, it seems too perfect to pass up. I knew that this was my time to join the Team and here we are now 3 weeks before the race. I'm getting very excited - I'm looking forward to the race (even though I'm a bit nervous) and I still love spending time with the group. I truly couldn't have asked for a better group of teammates and Mentor (Jim) and Coach Mitch. I'm so glad that I have taken on this challenge in honor of Aunt Goofy and look forward to being part of the Team for a long time into the future.

Today's Miles: 11.0
Total Miles: 194.0

Morning Walk

After some 5am text message debates with my co-workers about whether it was truly raining and if we should go out to the track, we did make it out there. It did rain for one lap or so (thankfully not bad enough) but other than that, it was a pretty nice morning. It's FINALLY starting to warm up again so I wasn't frigid like I had been all week. Still had the gloves and ear warmers on but what do you expect for it being dark between 5:45-6:30am! It was nice to walk a bit with them, chat a bit and just enjoy a nice morning. Good way to prepare myself for a long run tomorrow morning with the team ...

Today's Miles: 2.0
Total Miles: 183.0

Snow?!?

I've decided that it's getting too hard to run after work so I need to modify my running schedule a bit to ensure that I keep up the running and don't skip my workouts, as I've done in the past. Three of the women I work with have been walking/running at a track near our houses in the morning before work and I decided I was going to join them. It totally holds me accountable for showing up in the morning (I would definitely get razzed on if I missed a morning) and know that I'll really keep up my workout if I know people are watching. I got up this morning and made it out to the track by 6am with my co-workers no where in sight. Yes, I learned when I got to work that they instituted their "winter weather" plan of skipping the workout at the track to run/walk at their warm apartment gyms. Long story short, the morning started off at 30 degrees (even colder than last night) and as my run went on, the wind got even worse and then it started snowing. I had to walk backwards down one of the straightaways because the wind and snow in my face was so bad that I couldn't run/walk in that direction. I made it through 2.5 miles before I realized that I just couldn't be out there anymore - I'll finish my other mile tonight at the gym before yoga. I'm looking forward to the weather warming back up to normal (hopefully this weekend) so I can enjoy my morning runs and be warm again!!

Today's Miles: 2.5

Total Miles: 181.0

So Cold!

Well, fall/winter has come a little bit early this year to Colorado. The last day of summer was accompanied by 40 degree weather - in fact, I turned on my fireplace on last night to warm up. Unfortunately, today was even colder and they have been predicting snow tonight/tomorrow (up to 10 inches in some places!!). I was determined to not let the cold weather ruin my track practice. I bundled up - gloves and ear warmers included - and even made sure that I had other clothing options because I didn't know what I was going to want to run in. I've never run in the cold weather so I didn't know what to expect. And boy, it was chilly - which is challenging to run in - it makes your lungs feel like they're freezing. An hour and a half later, we had finished our workout of 4x800 intervals with increasing speeds with an easy 400 in between each one followed by as much running as we could to hit 7:30pm, and we wrapped up practice. I was off to a friend's house for some warm pizza and hot chocolate (and warm brownie/ice cream!) - probably not the best nutritional post-run meal but totally warmed me up and was enjoyable. All I know is that I'm a little nervous to what I'm going to wake up to in the morning and have to run in if all this snow actually happens ...

Today's Miles: 5.5
Total Miles: 178.5

Recharging

Sometimes, you just need to step back and recharge ... and that's exactly what Denise and I did tonight. It was another rainy Tuesday night (in fact, it hailed pea-sized hail while I was driving after work) and since I was already downtown meeting Denise, we decided to skip running in the rain and treat ourselves to some dinner, wine and good ol' girl talk! I've been exhausted lately and I know Denise has been having some of her own struggles with running and we just needed a night to recharge our batteries and get excited again for what we were doing. Don't get me wrong, I've always been excited for this experience but there are some times I'm a little more drained than I would like to be. Denise inspires me to run and to take on this challenge, and it was spectacular to take that same positive attitude she has to talk about other things in my life. Anyways, I left dinner 3 hours later and am really excited again for what I'm doing. Tonight was totally worth it!! :)

31 days until the half-marathon ... eeek!!!

Komen 5K

Yes, it's official - I ran my first official race this morning! I figured it would be smart to run a smaller race before the Half Marathon in 5 weeks (eek!!). I wanted to get a feel for what it would be like to run with lots of people around and to see what the adrenaline would be like. I convinced Nicole to run the Susan G. Komen 5K in Colorado Springs this morning at Garden of the Gods. Yes, pretty much anything that's in support of eliminating cancer gets my support! Got up bright and early and was greeted with cold and foggy weather - not exactly the best day weather I could have asked for - but there was no rain :) Although, I did have to wear my silly turtleneck dri-fit shirt because it was the only long sleeved one I had and I had to wear something a bit warmer to make up for the fact that I was wearing my running skirt and it was only 55 degrees out! The race started at 8am and I was excited ... until I remembered and was smacked with a hill for the first mile of the race! For as much as I run at GOTG, I forgot how tough that first hill was. We made it up the monster hill and continued on the race, which was relatively flat and downhill for the remainder. It was pretty neat to have people out there along the course cheering and having bands play music every 1/2 mile - it was a smaller scale of what the half marathon is going to be like and it was cool. We finished off strong - even though Nicole sprinted towards her version of the "finish line" just to find that we still had another .2 miles to go. We finished at 37:25 - exactly at the pace we we had planned on so I would consider it a successful morning.


I think I might be hooked on the 5k races. I love the fact that they're small and consist of runners of all skills - I felt good to know that I was bringing up the rear of the pack like I normally do when I run. 3.1 miles is a great distance and doesn't kill my body like some of the long runs do - in fact, I was still able to go to church and to the sports bar to watch the Cowboys play right after running - not like after my long runs. Races are also the motivation I need to get up and get a great workout in - I certainly won't miss a race that I've already signed up for. Expect to see a few more pictures and results from 5k races in the future!

Today's Miles: 3.5
Total Miles: 173.0

Training Partners

"Your training partners are key to your success, and friendships based on your runs together are strong." - Bill Rodgers

Despite how hard it can be to get motivated for a Tuesday track practice, I know that I'm always going to have a good time because of the people I run with. Saturday's are a little more lonesome for me since I don't have a running partner at my pace for the long distances, but Tuesday's are a bit different. I truly enjoy the group of people that I run with and look forward to seeing them every week. It's great to talk to them while running, encourage each other (okay, actually they encourage me a lot) and share tips to help our pains and challenges. I truly don't know that I would enjoy this as much if I didn't enjoy the people I was running with. They truly are the ones that make this experience better for me!! They have no idea how important they are to me ...

Today's Miles: 5.5
Total Miles: 169.5

Too Tight and Sore

I should have known that I couldn't go this long without my leg acting up and doing something to prevent me from running. My calf was SUPER sore today - it hurt to walk the warm-up. I tried running the warm-up laps on the track, hoping that I could run through the pain, which I can do sometimes, but tonight was not the night. The calf got really bad really quick so Coach gave me a walking and stretching workout to do for the night. It just kept getting worse and worse and it was so frustrating. Coach was watching me stretch my left calf and was shocked at how little I was able to bring my toes up off the ground, proving that my muscles were too tight, causing the pain in my calf and then working its way up to my knee. I'm going to spend significant amount of time stretching my leg and rolling it out to break things up. I'm determined to not have another bad night like tonight, and I refuse to have this bother me by the time the race comes around. I don't want this to keep bothering me - I don't want to have to leave another track practice early because I start limping - that's just not acceptable. I'm definitely feeling pretty defeated tonight, but hopeful that I can fix this problem soon.

PS - A burger and fries from Five Guys is NOT an appropriate post "workout" meal ... it sounded good at the time but overall, it was a very bad decision.

Today's Miles: 2.5
Total Miles: 164.0