My Fundraising Page

Dec 01, 2012

I was recently contacted by a reader than came across the blog that I write for school, on which I posted about running the marathon to raise money for LLS.


This is what he wrote to me:

"I came across your blog and really identified with your writing. My name is Cameron Von St. James and my wife was diagnosed with an extremely rare and deadly cancer called mesothelioma. Normally when diagnosed with mesothelioma, a person has a life expectancy of about 3-12 months, but after intense treatment and recovery she is still here 6 ½ years later. There are many steps to take as a caregiver when dealing with any type of cancer or harmful disease."


Cameron asked if I would providee a link to his blog to share "some tips, struggles, and successes" that he learned while caring for his wife.


Please do visit Cameron's blog to learn more.


Oct 12, 2012

The time has finally come! Tomorrow I will run the Baltimore Marathon. The weather promises to be cool with beautiful blue skies and I'm beyond excited. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me with kind words of encouragement, donations, training tips, and partnership on long runs, especially my Charlottesville Team in Training. I could not have prepared without all of your support. More importantly, you donated over $2,200 to help find a cure to blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, and myeloma.


This is a very personal cause for me. A few years ago, my grandfather passed away after a very painful battle with leukemia. As I run this race for him, I want to share some of my favorite memories of him.


Grandpa was a warm, and loving presence in my life. He was fond of walking up next to you at the breakfast table and rubbing your head with his fingers, saying "good puppy" (a seriously affectionate gesture given his immense love for his golden retriever, Rudy). Grandpa also had a sweet tooth and love of butter that was NOT messing around. Grandma used to help me make pies and then show me how to coat the leftover dough with cinnamon, sugar, and butter to make little snacks for Grandpa to eat while the pie baked.


Grandpa also was a brilliant man, with over 130 patents, applications, and inventions to his name from his career as an aerospace and automotive engineer. My aunt detailed some of his biggest intellectual contributions in his obituary:


A specialist in inertial guidance systems for missiles; his work included the electromechanical digital sensing system used in the SRAM missile; accelerometers and gyroscopes for artillery rockets, multiple components in use in the Navy’s Talos, Terrier, and Tartar missiles; and the world’s first production electronic antiskid systems for cars and for air-braked trucks. At Battelle Memorial Institute, he did basic investigations on “Twindow” double glazed windows used in airplanes, and was issued a patent on the sealing mechanism. While Director of Research and Advanced Engineering at Kelsey-Hayes Company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he was a recipient of the prestigious I R 100 Award for his “Kel-Stop” braking system. He had been called one of the top five research and development men in the country.


What I remember most about his engineering skills was that whenever I got a new charm that I needed to put on my charm bracelet or when a piece of my jewelry broke, Grandpa would take me downstairs to his vast shop of homemade machine tools and walls of meticulously organized hardware. After making me put on shoes to protect my feet from the metal shavings from the floor, he would walk me to his bench. Nothing was too small for him to help with (except for the time when he broke the news that my broken necklace was actually plastic and he couldn’t solder it back together).


Grandpa was also an avid flutist. Every afternoon up until very near the end of his life, his dog Rudy would follow him to the basement, where they would diligently practice the flute for several hours. The sounds of Grandpa’s music could be heard throughout the house with the occasional accompaniment from Rudy. When I hear a classical piece on the radio featuring a flute, I often catch myself waiting for dog howls.


Grandpa was incredibly loved by everyone around him. He lived a long, full life, but it ended abruptly and painfully. We miss him all the time. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping to find a cure to blood cancers and support the patients and families battling them.

Sep 09, 2012

I've been down in Charlottesville for business school a little over a month now. It's been hectic and stressful, but exciting and fun, too. Who would have thought that I'd like Accounting and Decision Analysis better than Marketing? Or that I'd be going through a major phase of my life with another Bryn Mawrtian, yet again? Or that I would be too busy to watch tv, play fantasy football, and listen to O's games? (OK, I could have guessed those last few...)


But surprisingly, I haven't been too busy to keep up with my training. I don't always get my mid-week runs in, especially when I have to stay up late to finish prepare my cases for class the next day, but I've been very consistent about getting my long runs in. And that's almost entirely due joining to the Charlottesville Team in Training. It's a group of really nice, supportive, and interesting people that I've really enjoyed spending early morning hours with once a week. The team is significantly smaller than the team in DC (about 14 people total, as compared to maybe 150, and only 4-6 people at each run, as compared to upwards of 50), but the size is great because we can get to know each other, learn each other’s paces, injuries, and goal race paces.


Yesterday, I ran my first 18 miler since training for the Marine Corps Marathon in 2009. I was a little worried about the distance, especially since I had gotten a cold during the week and couldn't do ANY of my mid-week runs. But when I got out to our meeting point about 10 miles outside of Charlottesville, I was ready to go. I always thought I was lucky to be running in DC past the monuments and along the river, but it's a different kind of awesome out here. The morning mist was still pretty thick and the sun hadn’t come up yet. Running over the rolling hills past cow pastures, a peach orchard, I snapped a few pictures as the sun came up:





Sep 01, 2012

I got home last night at about 9:30, stressed out about the two big deliverables for work I need to get done by tomorrow and Thursday and the online accounting class I have to finish by Friday as a pre-req for school. As I made dinner, I debated whether I should stay up late to work on accounting or get up early to do work work or accounting, which would mean I would be forsaking my run--a bad habit I can easily slip into.


My mind wandered away to other things and as I waiting for the water to boil for my pasta I watched this TED talk.


There are a lot of cool and inspiring concepts in here, but what really struck me was what she said about will power: it's like a muscle. The more you practice exerting it, the better you become at doing it.


It struck a chord. The more I put off going on runs by telling myself I didn't have time, the harder it would be to get out there. The more I forced myself to stick to my training schedule, the easier it would become (not to mention the actual running would become easier as I got in better and better shape).


Plus, one if the reasons I was so stressed about these deliverables at work is that they require quiet thinking time, which is exceedingly hard to carve out during the day as meeting invitations come streaming in from all over. As I had found out a few months ago, I can do some of my best thought work on writing case profiles for our studies when I'm running because I have a long time just to think and roll the problems around in my head.


So this morning at five, I woke up before sunrise to get my 7 mile run in before my 8 am meeting. I started my run and the problems that have been plaguing me for the past few runs of the NPR app on my phone continuing to play while the Nike+ app was tracking my run irritatingly persisted. Anxious to get going for fear or being late to my meeting, I gave in to just listening to music.


I forgot how motivating that is. I ran my first mile about 40 seconds faster than my pace in my last seven to ten runs (during which I felt like my legs were made of lead, but that's a different story). I puzzled through the case profile I'm working on and chugged across the mall to the Lincoln memorial and back.


By the time I slowed down in front of my building at the end of my run, I had pulled together an outline of my case profile. And then my phone told me I had set a new personal record for a 10k. I guess pressure actually does improve my performance!


Jun 25, 2012

So I thought I could keep training while in India...turns out, I really do hate the treadmill as much as I thought I did. The trashy books I downloaded on audio that I promised myself I could only listen to while running didn't even help. (Thankfully, because now I actually get to read them, which is so much more enjoyable. Maybe even by the pool ;) )


Anyways, I managed to run fairly often, but couldn't bring myself to do more than 6 miles. So yesterday morning, after a good night's sleep in my own bed for the first time in 3 weeks, I got up and went for a run to prove to myself I didn't lose that much ground while away. The jet lag was actually pretty helpful because I was WIDE awake at 5:30 and was able to run along the mall as the sun was coming up. What a perfect welcome back to the city. Anyone that says DC isn't beautiful really hasn't seen it at sunrise on a beautiful summer day...


Here are few shots I took of the WWII memorial near the mid-point of my run:


I'm really excited to be back running outside and pick up my training again.

Make a Donation

We are no longer accepting donations for this event, however you can still make a donation to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Supporter Comments

"GOOD LUCK!!!!"
Paul Overmyer and Kristen Haase
Sun May 6 11:57:58 EDT 2012
"Enhorabuena, Caroline! I know you'll do amazingly."
Anonymous user
Sun May 6 12:21:11 EDT 2012
"Good luck!"
Gina Anderson
Sun May 6 12:49:52 EDT 2012
"Go Caroline!"
Dan Epstein & Jessica Morales
Mon May 7 02:58:56 EDT 2012
"Go Caroline!"
Camille Chang
Wed May 9 10:04:33 EDT 2012
"Good luck!! Andrew"
Andrew Eifler
Sun May 13 07:06:17 EDT 2012
"Good luck, Caroline!"
Mary McVeigh
Sun May 13 11:43:53 EDT 2012
"We are SO proud of you!"
The Silbermans
Mon May 14 08:27:23 EDT 2012
"Best wishes -- proud of you, Caroline!"
Christopher Lee
Tue May 15 04:22:40 EDT 2012

My Fundraising Total

124%
124 %
My Team

Make a Donation

We are no longer accepting donations for this event, however you can still make a donation to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

My Thanks To

Anonymous $150.00
Mary & Terry And... $100.00
Mom & Dad $100.00
Christopher Lee $100.00
Mary McVeigh $100.00
Banana $100.00
Paul Overmyer and Kr... $60.00
Corporate Executive ... $50.00
Corporate Executive ... $50.00
Corporate Executive ... $50.00
Sophia Chaale $50.00
Whitney Patross $50.00
Emily Gipple $50.00
Andrew Eifler $50.00
Camille Chang $50.00
Meghan Guinee $50.00
Joe & Aly $50.00
Sallie Van Tassel $50.00
Raymond Liu $50.00
Emily Harding $50.00
Nancy Aiken $50.00
Gina Anderson $50.00
Dan Epstein & Je... $36.00
Margaret Whiting $26.20
Caroline Kalinoski $25.00
Corporate Executive ... $25.00
Corporate Executive ... $25.00
Andrew Robertson $25.00
Ericah Schmucker $25.00
Mary Emma Young $25.00
Andrew Mitchell $25.00
Victoria Fine $25.00
Jennifer Bustamante $25.00
Sara Lense $25.00
Lindsay Patross $25.00
Michael Sachaj $25.00
Cara Becker $25.00
Timothy Wilkins $15.00
Sara Osborne
The Silbermans
Rachel Kiselewich

Supporter Comments

"GOOD LUCK!!!!"
Paul Overmyer and Kristen Haase
Sun May 6 11:57:58 EDT 2012
"Enhorabuena, Caroline! I know you'll do amazingly."
Anonymous user
Sun May 6 12:21:11 EDT 2012
"Good luck!"
Gina Anderson
Sun May 6 12:49:52 EDT 2012
"Go Caroline!"
Dan Epstein & Jessica Morales
Mon May 7 02:58:56 EDT 2012
"Go Caroline!"
Camille Chang
Wed May 9 10:04:33 EDT 2012
"Good luck!! Andrew"
Andrew Eifler
Sun May 13 07:06:17 EDT 2012
"Good luck, Caroline!"
Mary McVeigh
Sun May 13 11:43:53 EDT 2012
"We are SO proud of you!"
The Silbermans
Mon May 14 08:27:23 EDT 2012
"Best wishes -- proud of you, Caroline!"
Christopher Lee
Tue May 15 04:22:40 EDT 2012