Mallika's Fundraising Page

The Fire Might Be Out, But . . .

The purple passion lives on!

After a week and a half of extremely poor air quality, and thus no training, this past week we have finally started to run again. Julianne and I did a few mid week runs and I'm super excited to go to practice tomorrow morning. We are going to do 6 miles! That's about the top of my milage chart so far. Next we we are doing 9 miles! YIKES!

And speaking of passion - lets not forget the reason I am doing this training! The Laukemia and Lymphoma Society is such a great organization and I am so happy to be doing my part to better the lives of those suffering from cancer! Tomorrow we are meeting two of our honored teammates, and having a potluck luncheon just for them! It will be so great to see our running paying off (litteraly!!) and making a difference in the lives of these kids! Please make a donation and help me support LLS on their awesome mission!

Mr. Young's Got It Right

Our coaches have told us that we are going to start to need to cary water with us on our longer runs! So I went out and bought a "water belt" It's exactly what it sounds like - a belt with 4 small water bottles on it. I haven't run with it yet. Some runners say they don't like the extra weight, and on race day they just get water at the aid stations along the course. I'm gonna try running with it tomorrow morning on our short 35 min run. Best to try it before Saturday when we run 75 min.

Julianne and I wen to strength training with the team last night at Arcadia High School. And I realized that my right quad (on the leg that I had knee surgery on 5 years ago) is significantly smaller than my left. So I'm made a promise to myself to do leg strengthening exercises every day for the next month. Hopefully I can build up some more muscle and prevent any type of injury. Luckily it hasn't been hurting at all! So far, so good!

Here's a quote for all you Bay Area folks - I'm still a 9er fan at heart

The principle is competing against yourself. It's about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.

-Steve Young

Training!

We had another team practice last Saturday. And I was placed in the fasest pace group! I was so proud of myself. They slowed us way down from the time we got on our 3.1 pace assesment at the first practice. But it's probably better, at least for me, cause I know I can't keep up with a 9.5 min/mile. So we ran for 1 hr and made it 5.7 miles. Not to shabby!

I've been doing our week runs with my teammates Julianne and Denny Moore. It's really fun. And I've discovered that running with out headphones is actually nicer, especially when I have a friend to talk to. I'm not as tired as I was listening to music.

Hope to have some more updates for you after this weekend's practice!!

First Team Practice

Last Saturday was our first Team In Training practice at the Rose Bowl, in Pasadena. We had some great pep talks from Lindsey, our campaign manager, and got to know our coaches and mentors a little bit better. And I got a bumper sticker for my car for having raising a bunch of money already! Thanks again for your support!

After the talks, we started to prepare for our days run. In order to figure out which Pace Group we will be training in, our coaches wanted us to run about 3 miles as fast as we could. Not like sprinting. Normal long distance running, at a healthy fast pase for us. I was very proud of my time. Coming in 7th out of the whole group, I finished in 27 min and 45 seconds. And my friends Julianne and Denny were with me the whole way and right behind me at the end. So we are hoping to be in the same pacing group for training.

And for training during the week, we have to run on our own. We did 4.5 miles on Monday, 2.7 miles on Wednesday and 4.2 miles yesterday, Thursday. We have our second practice tomorrow, Saturday. And I am very excited!

Last Weekend

First of all, thank you so much to eveyone who has helped me get started on meeting my fundraising goal of $3,000. You're support means a lot to me, and even more to the people who's lives will be forever changed by your contribution! THANK YOU!

So, last weekend Team In Training held a kick off party in Culver City. It was fun to see my teammates and trainers again, and TNT had set up tables with lots of information about fun and creative ways to fundraise. It was pretty cool to see so many people so motivated to make some positive change in the world! The picture above is of the table that was set up to tell people about the Santa Barbara 1/2 Marathon, the one I will be runing in November. It was great to hear about what the course will be like and see some pictures of past racers!

This coming Saturday we have our first San Gabrial Valley team practice. I'm really excited to meet everyone and see what it's like to train with them!!

Racing to Save Lives

Welcome to my Team In Training home page.

I'm training to participate in an endurance event as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. I am completing this event in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers. These people are the real heroes on our team, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure!

In addition to those suffering from blood cancers, I am running this race in honor of my aunt, Lisa Pettengill. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and has been undergoing treatment since Jan. of this year. She is one of the strongest and funniest people I know, and her fight against cancer has greatly effected me. I am also running in memory of my husbands father, who passed away last December. He fought hard against a very aggressive form of Thyroid cancer.

I have seen, and felt directly, the effects that cancer has on families. And I am proud to join Team In Training to raise money to help the lives of those suffering from cancer.

Please make a

donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance

LLS's mission.

I hope you will visit my web site often.

Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress. Thanks for your

support!