It’s the Final Countdown to the marathon! In 3 days, I will be on a plane to California! I cannot wait. We had our last GTS this past Saturday and hung out and decorated race singlets after. I did my own race singlet up on Sunday and can’t wait to wear it. For the record, you can use iron-on letters on synthetic fabric. This Friday night, we will be having a Team pasta dinner in Monterey. On Saturday morning, we will do a short 2-mile run in Carmel to loosen the legs, followed by a carb-loaded breakfast. Then Sunday is the big day!

One lane of the highway has been reopened after the landslide but it’s too late to change the course back to the original. I’m okay with that and maybe I will take a drive to Big Sur on Saturday, as it’s supposed to be beautiful.

I just can’t wait to get out there and run this race in memory of Aedyn and Earl! It has been an awesome training season and I feel so thankful every day for all of the support. Whether you have provided me with mental support or you’ve chosen to monetarily support the efforts of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through a donation to my campaign, just know I think that you are amazing. When I signed up for this, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into, and I have been so thoroughly blown away by the generosity I’ve seen. All of you will be in my thoughts when I’m running on Sunday, and I hope that you will take a minute to remember Aedyn and Earl and all of the countless others who have battled some type of cancer. If you have a loved one who is currently battling cancer or who has fought it and won, take a second to let them know how much they mean to you!

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR SUPPORT – YOU ARE ALL MY HEROS!

Let the countdown begin! (And let me apologize in advance for the very rambling nature of this post!)

I know I've been remiss in my updates! For those of you wondering, I'm still on the elliptical. I was doing the elliptical and physical therapy faithfully and was feeling much better. By March 12, the day of the team 16-miler, I hadn't felt any pain in my knee for a few days so I decided to try the run. I got about 6 miles in and had to throw in the towel. My knee had started to hurt pretty much as soon as we started running and it was slowly getting worse. I knew that if I didn't stop when I had the chance (at a water stop, where I could then be taken back to the church), by the time that I finished my knee would be right back at square one. While I was really disappointed, attempting the run was important for me mentally. I had not run any real distance in a month and despite that, I could tell that had my knee not started hurting, I would have been able to go the whole 16 miles that day. My body and mind (other than my knee) felt great. It was that day when I realized that training on the elliptical truly will get me over the finish line at Big Sur, as unlikely as that sounds! It has continued to strengthen my leg muscles and has helped my cardiovascular fitness. So although I wasn't able to finish the long run, I realized that I am still on track to finish the longer-than-long run on May 1.

Other than that run, the only pain I've had in my knee for quite some time is when I try to do a quad stretch. For the past week or so, I haven't even had pain then, so I think there's a decent chance that my knee has finally healed. At this point, however, I'm too scared to risk any setback and so I don't think I'm going to attempt any running before the marathon, other than possibly a 3 or 4-miler.

I was scheduled to do 18 miles yesterday. I didn't get up in the morning like I should have and by the time I got to the gym, I only had time to do 13.5 miles on the elliptical before the gym closed. I watched an entire movie and a TV show and the only time I stopped was to stretch my hips. I was pleased to realize that I could have gone to 18 had time permitted. Our last long run - 20 miles - is scheduled for 2 weeks from now. I will be in E.C. that day, awaiting the birth of my niece. My plan is to go to the YMCA to get in my mileage. I told my sister that she should come get on the elliptical beside me and maybe it will cause her to go into labor :) After that long run (long exercise session?), it will all be downhill until the race.

You may have heard that there was a landslide along the Big Sur route that took out part of the route. Now, instead of 26.2 miles down the highway from Big Sur to Carmel, we will start in Carmel, run backwards 13.1, and then turnaround and go back to Carmel. While I'm extremely disappointed that the marathon has been changed to an out-and-back (I purposefully avoided looking into any such marathons when I was deciding which marathon to run), there are positives:

• 1 - The landslide took out part of Hurricane Point, which is 2 miles of continuous uphill and considered to be a beast. While I know certain teammates are disappointed to not be able to conquer this particular challenge (ahem, Elizabeth), I feel sure that the marathon will be difficult enough without Hurricane Point and I can't say I'm sad to see it go ;-)
• 2 - We will get to sleep in for a couple of extra hours since we no longer have to be bussed to Big Sur for the start.
• 3 - An extra half hour has been added to the course time limit (I guess because they can since traffic will be reduced on the highway until the road is fixed), giving me 6.5 hours to complete the course. Especially in light of my knee injury, I really might need that extra half hour and am beyond ecstatic to have it!

In fundraising news, we had a team fundraiser at Fado in conjunction with their St. Paddy's Day block party. We sold green beads (a la Mardi Gras beads) as people entered, and my understanding is that we raised around $2,500! I was extremely pleased with the number and I hope that TNT continues to sell beads at events in the future! Today, I attended a wine tasting fundraiser at Portofino, hosted by teammate Jay. The wine was a-flowing and I had lots of good conversations with fellow TNTers and guests. It was a great fundraiser and I hope Jay raised a lot of money!

I couldn't run the Publix half last weekend due to the injury but I still went to the expo to get my goodies. It was there that I registered for the Rock 'n' Roll Savannah half in November. Very excited to run that one! I'd like to mentor for that event but even if I'm not able to, I still plan to help out in any way I can, including volunteering for water stop duty during training season. I freakin' LOVE this organization and I plan to be involved for a long time!!

I haven’t posted in awhile because things have not been progressing as planned. I got sick at the very end of January. I never went to the doctor but I missed several days of work and because the sickness was in my chest the whole time, I was unable to run. As a result, I missed the group 8 miler and 10 miler. By the week of February 7, I was finally feeling better and ready to dive back in. I did the scheduled 4 miles on Tuesday and 6 miles on Wednesday. My right knee started bothering me just a tad on Wednesday so I purchased a patellar strap for that knee on Wednesday night and wore it for Thursday night’s 4 miler. After that 4 miler, my knee was really bothering me so I went ahead and made an appointment for the following Tuesday with an orthopedist. I then planned to sit out the 12 miler for the following Saturday.

I woke up Saturday morning with no knee pain and stupidly decided to do the group run. I was fine for roughly the first 8 miles and then my knee started hurting again. I decided to finish and according to my GPS watch, the run was actually 13.6 miles instead of 12. I finished and limped back to my car and spent the next couple of days barely able to walk. By the time I made it to the doctor on Tuesday, I wasn’t limping but was still in some pain.

I specifically went to this doctor because he is a runner and so I was hoping he would understand. X-rays were taken and the doctor came in and bent and examined my knee. He diagnosed me with Runner’s Knee, which is what I had suspected anyway. I did learn that apparently I’m slightly knock-knee and my patella doesn’t properly track, so what I took away from the appointment is that all the issues I’ve had with my knees are largely biological. I wish the orthopedist I saw 2 years ago had realized that about my knees and put me in braces then. Apparently it’s obvious because anyone I talk to about my diagnosis who knows something about knock knees then looks down at my knees and says, “Oh yeah, I can see it.” As a result, the picture below reflects my new reality. I was making a frown face in the picture, but it’s not bad :)

Anyway, I didn’t like the doctor’s attitude. He asked me how much I was running 6 months ago and then told me that you can’t go from running that to running a marathon. Um, yes you can. Everyone has to start somewhere, and I’ve been diligently following the highly successful training plan given to TNTers, with the exception of the week I had a chest cold. He then told me that I don’t need to run Big Sur and that there are other marathons. While that may be true, there won’t be another marathon in the near future that means to me what Big Sur means to me. I explained that to him and by the end of the appointment, he simply told me he “hopes” I make my marathon.

Most frustrating of all, he wouldn’t give me a ballpark of when he thought I could run again. He basically said he knows I’m just going to start running again in a week anyway so it doesn’t matter what he tells me. That is not true. While it’s been hard to force myself not to run, I haven’t run since February 12. I’ve been taking the anti-inflammatories and icing like a madwoman. My friend is a physical therapist and I’ve been doing the exercises she sent to me as well as the exercises I received when I went two years ago. I finally have an actual appointment with the physical therapist on Thursday morning and I’m hoping to get good news.

In the meantime, I started doing the elliptical to keep up my cardio. The first week of the injury, I didn’t do any cardio at all. Then this past week, I did the elliptical for 32 minutes on Monday and again on Tuesday. I met up with the Team on Wednesday night after their run to catch up and talk to the coach. It was really hard listening to everyone talk about the 8 miles they had just completed and I was getting so depressed, wondering if I was going to be able to do the marathon. But I talked to my teammates and my coach and my coach advised me that if I had to, I could do the rest of my training on the elliptical and still be fine as long as I got in the prescribed mileage. I’ll admit, I didn’t have a very positive reaction when she told me that. I find machine exercise to be tedious and could not imagine being on the elliptical for hours at a time.

But the next day, I emerged from my mental slump. I did my prescribed 5 miles on the elliptical and it wasn’t terrible! The hour actually went by much more quickly than I anticipated, and I knew then that I would attempt 14 miles on the elliptical the following weekend, come hell or high water. I decided to sleep in on Saturday morning and by the time I was ready to do my 14 miles, there weren’t enough opening hours left at the gym to do so. So, I got up yesterday morning and made it to the gym around 10:30 and after my tour of the gym (it was my first time there), I staked out a machine and got started. I spent the first 30 minutes watching TV and reading Atlanta magazine. Then I watched the first two episodes of Downton Abbey (Masterpiece Theatre), which I had downloaded onto my iPod Touch. When they were done, I spent the last 18 minutes watching E!. And then I was done! Yes, it was crazy, but I did it! I had to take a break every 30 minutes to let the feeling come back to my toes, but I plugged on. It wasn’t the best 3 hours of my life, but I watched some good TV and did something I never would have believed possible. If you had told me just a year ago that I would stay on ANY piece of exercise equipment for 3 hours, I would have laughed in your face. But now I know what I’m capable of and it’s exactly what I needed to get me back in the right place mentally.

I’m going to stick to the elliptical this week and if by some miracle the PT tells me I can run my 8 miles with the team on Saturday, that is great. But if I have to continue on the elliptical, I know I can and I know I’ll make it to Big Sur. At the end of the day, long hours on the elliptical is absolutely nothing compared to long hours hooked up to chemotherapy and I’m going to continue to do my part to kick cancer’s arse!!

Thanks to everyone who came out to Ormsby's today for the Big Sur Team Fundraiser. There were a ton of people and a ton of silent auction items and I can't wait to find out the grand total of how much we raised! Below is a picture of Ryan Watton. Ryan is my mentor and also our team's honored hero and teammate. Ryan is a fairly recent survivor of Hodgkin's Lymphoma and is now running marathons! He is awesome and is a constant inspiration and reminder of why we are all doing this.

I am continuously humbled by the generosity I have seen since I signed up for Team in Training. In addition to my amazing family and friends, I would like to thank the following businesses that donated items to the silent auction:

Adrenaline Fitness

Atlanta Rocks!

Buckhead Life Restaurant Group

Cocktails & Canvas

Jamison Shaw Salon

Judy Sarden

Laurie Caldwell

Mellow Mushroom Brookhaven

Pozole

Pub 71

Shakespeare Tavern

Varasanos

Verde Taqueria

Vintage Pizzeria

Whole World Theatre

Woodfire Grill

I won one of the Atlanta Rocks! gift certificates, as well as the Varasanos gift certificate, which I've been wanting to try. I also won a massage, a one-month membership to LA Fitness and gift certificates to Fresh 2 Order and The Nook. And by won, I mean I was the successful bidder and my money is now going to a great cause in exchange for some great items!

The fundraiser was awesome. Too bad I feel like shitake. I came down with something this past week and wasn't able to do the long run on Saturday (we are up to 8 miles) since it's in my chest. I'm hoping to be able to run again by Wednesday. I miss my team!!

It's Snowmegeddon 2011 here in Atlanta. It started on Sunday night and has paralyzed the city. I am working from home again tomorrow, which makes 4 days that I haven't been into the office. Crazy! Also crazy? Being cooped up in the house. Yesterday was a cross-training day, so I used my recumbent bike. Today, we were scheduled to run 4 miles. My gym was closed and the sidewalks are ice so I decided to drive, slowly, to my friend's house to use the gym at her condo complex. We made our way slowly across her iced parking lot and got to exercising. I had gone exactly one mile when I noticed it had started snowing/icing again. We decided to quit so that I wouldn't get stuck at her house, and she sent me on my way with some delicious homemade gumbo. I may or may not have stopped at McDonald's on the way home for a diet coke (nothing will cause McDonald's to close). When I got home, I decided to do 20 minutes on the bike. It won't make up for not being able to do the prescribed mileage but at least it's something :)

You can see that I was happy to be braving the ice for a run...and not so happy to be relegated to the bike in the end.