I am so excited! Really excited!! Race day is closing in and my team is closing in on $400,000 raised for LLS. AMAZING! And you are a huge part of that, thank you again so much for your support. Your donation is going to change lives. I know my life has forever been changed. I have accomplished things I never thought were possible, so much so that I am going to continue training and run my first full marathon next April. But let's through the first half right?

This morning was our last midweek mentor led run for the season, we had a great turn out as you can see. I am heading up to San Fran tomorrow am and I am so thrilled that I will have a cheering section. Merri, Liz and Alana are coming all the way from NYC to support me and I couldn't be happier. It means so much to me that they will be there, not to mention Manashi crossing the finish line herself! Plus Krys who works in the NJ office is coming to run her 6th full marathon. So much love, I can't take it!!!

The Greater LA chapter is so very close to raising ONE MILLION DOLLARS! No amount is too small, a dollar can put us over the top so please consider a donation. Thank you again for all your support.

WHOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Take that Cancer! As my friend Lolita, a breast cancer survivor, always says "punch cancer in the face!" And we struck a blow my friends. Do you see that 100% to the right???? How amazing, I never thought it could be BUT you made it happen. I can't thank you ALL so much for your support and your generous donations. YOU are helping to cure cancer. How awesome is that?

Your donation will:

• Encourage scientists to pursue blood cancer research. Grants to young scientists help grow research talent even as federal research funding becomes increasingly limited.
• Develop "targeted therapies" that kill cancer cells selectively. By hitting specific molecular targets, these treatments don't harm patients' healthy cells, resulting in fewer dangerous side effects.
• Test immunotherapies. Immunotherapies strengthen a patient's own immune system so it can better fight infections and attack cancer cells, reducing the need for damaging chemotherapy.
• Improve the safety of today's cures. LLS funds research to predict, manage and prevent complications in patients most at risk for long-term and late effects of treatment.
• Help patients and their families make informed decisions. LLS supplies information and counseling to help guide patients through their cancer journey and access current treatment and clinical trial options.
• Provide financial aid and co-pay assistance. A cancer diagnosis is hard enough without having to deal with its financial burden. We provide programs to help relieve the economic strain of a blood cancer diagnosis.
• Offer community services. Among the wide array of programs LLS provides are those that link newly diagnosed patients with trained volunteers and that help young cancer patients return to school after an absence resulting from treatment.
• Encourage our state and federal legislators to support blood cancer issues. With your help, LLS brings to the attention of lawmakers the urgent need for increased government funding and support of research and patient access to affordable treatment and quality care.

Take a read and see the amazing research being done by Dr. June, who is almost soley funded by LLS (your donations!) http://www.esquire.com/features/logan-parker-end-of-cancer-1013 This is life saving work and we are so close...the fight it not over and becuase of that I am going to continue to raise money for LLS and train for my first ever full marathon. I will continue to update this page but you can also follow me at http://pages.teamintraining.org/los/la14/jmihalovic.

Thank you all again for your love and support, I am truly overwhelmed. I can't begin to tell you how much it means to me, so I will simply say Thank you.

If you have been reading this blog you have an idea of how much I love this team. Yes, love. The team. I am not a fan of running but I am a fan of kicking cancer's ass and a fan of spending time with amazing people who do amazing things.

I love getting up before the sun during the week to meet my mentor and my capt along with other teamamates for a run. Not becuase I get the runners high (I don't know if this exists) simply because I love to be around this group of people. The other week I got to share this with Manashi, who convinced me to do this in the first place. so yeah this is all her fault.

She got to feel first hand just how aweseom this team is. A few of them have been doing this year in and year out, raising countless amounts of money and have changed so many lives. Some are new like me and have become so attached to this feeling we have all signed up to be part of the Spring Team.

I know right? I havent even completed my first half marathon and there I go signing up for the LA Marathon. yeah, 26.1 miles. I'm not going to think about that right now, instead I am thrilled that at east 9 of my current teamates feel the same way and also signed up for the Spring Team.

I have found friends, real friends who support me when the going is rough...10 miles is a long time to support someone and they do it with ease. I am so excited to be giving back and helping a new group of people feel the love.

This team is focused on the mission, we have raised over 270,000 for LLS and still counting. Yeah you read that right. That amount of money could fund the grant that finds a drug to actually cure cancer. I am a part of that. I am a part of something that is doing good in this world, in the small steps we take supporting each other to run further than we ever thought possible and also in the big steps we take in asking people like you for donations. You are also a part of this! You are helping someday become today. Thank you so much for all your love and support.

Something very special happens before our long distance run practices on Sunday. We have a "mission moment". This is someone who speaks to us to remind us why we are raising money, why we are running, why this is so important. It can be an honored teammate like Phyllis or it can be one our own teammates like Becky.

The other week teamate Jen introduced us to Kethan, an 11 year old boy who has been battling cancer since he was 4 years old. Kethan captured Jen's heart, she shared how an experimental drug at her company Pfizer had helped extened Kethan's life but he was back in the hospital, once again fighting for his life. We ran 8 miles that day for Kethan, Jen taking a quick video to send to him, to let him know we were praying and rooting for him. It's THE reason we are all doing this, to raise money for reaserch so people like Kethan don't have to fight to stay alive. You can meet Kethan in this video about his story: http://youtu.be/VAkHOc9eDC8

The following week Nick, a cancer survivor, told us his story. Nick was athletic, on the go and back in 2004 he felt a pain in his shoulder. After testing he was diagnosed with Chronic myelogenous leukemia (also called CML). CML is not as well resaerched as other cancers and he credits his survival to Gleevac, a drug supported by LLS reasearch. Since its approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2001, Gleevec® has become the standard first-line therapy for newly diagnosed chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients. LLS helped advance this groundbreaking targeted therapy and supported the researchers who helped develop the more recently approved drugs, Sprycel® and Tasigna®. These drugs make it possible for patients to survive many years with good quality of life. The 10-year survival rate has been remarkably improved, from approximately one in ten to nearly nine in ten for chronic phase CML patients (including children). Gleevec® is also approved for patients with rare skin and stomach tumors, and showing promise in many other cancers. Nick now raises money for LLS and shares his story to inspires others.

Fo every story like Nick, there are far too many like Kethan. A week after Jen shared his story with us, Kethan lost his battle.

I can't imagine the pain his family is feeling right now but I know that we, together, can help cure cancer. We can save another family from having to suffer, we can save another child, we can save another person from cancer. I know we can, we are so close. Please, consider a donation to help cure cancer.

I really haven't had the time to get over the 7 miles of torture we had completed on Sunday and it was time to prepare for my first ever race. Me, running 3.11 miles, in a race! I know, it's hard for me to believe too.

As we gathered with 3,000 other runners I had a chance to meet with other TNT members from the Greater LA area. This is most of us before the race. I had never done a race before so really didn't know what to expect. Getting in place to start was a little daunting. There was no one there from my pace group that I could find so I was figuring that I was going to be on my own. I had run with Charlene before but as the mileage when I up I dropped back in pace. Knwoing this was going to be for only 3 miles I figured I could handle the pace so I asked Charlene if I could hang with her to start. She set up her fancy garmin computer and said let's do this, 4/1 good? I said sure, we got this.

Here we are turning the corner for the home stretch. I am surprised that I am sort of smiling, I don't recall feeling that good at all. We started out running a 10 min mile and remember that is at a 4/1. Which means we run for 4 minutes and walk for 1. And we were still at the fatest pace I've ever done. Charlene knows how to walk! It is def something I need to work on.

As soon as the race started I had to pee. I was warned about this and did use the porta potty before the race but I learned, go and go again and go again. If you have time to stand and chat you have time to pee. So when this picture was taken I know I was thinking of the porta potty and how quickly could I reach it? Turns out I could get there in 32 minutes and 44 seconds!

That's right, I finished a 5k in 32:44. Charlene was awesome, pushing me to do my best. She taught me race etiquette which I know other runners in future races will appreciate. Charlene made it look easy, it was like running with a personal coach. I know I would not have done so well without her and the rest of the team. Now that I have basked in the glory of coming in 60th place in my age group of 165 racers it is time to focus on 8 miles this Sunday.

Yeah I said it, 8 miles.