Race officials canceled the swim portion of the Nation’s Triathlon due to hazardous conditions mid day yesterday. Like many of my fellow triathletes I was pretty disappointed about the news. We put a lot of effort into 5:30 AM swims, open water swims, hours spent eating to recover from the 2-3 weekly swims and the humbling experience of having to put on and take off a wet suit in front of strangers.

However, earlier today I received an unexpected donation from a coworker which turned my perspective around and reminded me that the reason I trained and raised money was for people battling leukemia and lymphoma. To my coworker she was simply doing something that had sat on her to do list for months, but to me she made my day.

Thank you everyone who donated.

Just a little over one week until the triathlon and good news! I spoke with my CEB’s gift matching group and it looks like once they process all the matching gifts I'll only be $100 away from my 3k goal!!!

It made me think of the impact that all the donations have on the individuals that LLS supports. A friend shared this list and I thought it was really cool so I wanted to share it with all of you who have donated (and those still considering a donation).

• $500 - Provides a patient with leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma financial aid to

medical treatment and travel to medical appointments for one year.

• $200 - Provides funding for a Family Support Group Program for one year where comfort can be found and experiences can be shared among patients and family members mediated by a trained facilitator.

• $150 - Provides for 5 patients to make a First Connection with a trained peer volunteer patient/survivor.

• $100 - Helps supply laboratory researchers with supplies and materials critical to carrying out their search for cures

• $75 - Covers the cost of one tissue typing test that is used to become a bone marrow donor.

• $50 - Covers the cost of one CT scan.

• $40 - Covers the cost of sending a comprehensive support and informational packet to the family of a child with cancer.

• $35 - Provides transportation expenses for a patient living in the DC metropolitan area to a comprehensive cancer center for treatment.

• $25 - Covers the cost of one prescription co-payment.

Lesson of from my bike ride to work today: Bike shorts and tri shorts are made of spandex and therefor should never be a light color like white... think about it.

I just got back from a great weekend at my fraternities bi-annual convention in Phoenix AZ--beautiful weather, great friends, an amazing location, and believe it or not I was able to get in some really great triathlon training. It did take time to figure out how to use the resorts relaxing environment to my advantage, but by the end of the weekend I learned some key lessons:

• Wake up early enough to swim upstream in a lazy river. It’s a good swim work for the upstream portion of the swim (I also practiced the downstream portion which I think I have down as long as Jo is there to hand me a drink).
• People lie. Lie: “Running in 107 degree dry heat is the same as running in 95 degree heat with humidity” FACT: Running in 107 degree heat is the worse of the two because a) you will dry out faster than an alcoholic at Betty Ford and 2) there’s no one to find you passed out in the desert.
• It’s easy to run on a treadmill with a good friend next to you to talk with. No explanation needed

Lastly, I wanted to mention two facilitators at the conference who took extra time to give me some great advice. Both are affiliated with Deviate a performance improvement group started by a great friend of mine. Thank you both for your time and expertise:

• Dr. Erika Blanck, a physical therapist and assistant professor at USC’s School of Medicine, who explained what plantar fasciitis is and how to treat it all while entertaining a room full of young men who were following her every word.
• Frank Butterfield one of the country’s leading personal trainers was able to give me simple tools to improve my running form to avoid plantar fasciitis in the future and tips on how to shave time off my triathlon time.

Here are some photos of the resport:

Second Bike accident of the season (Read about my run in with a street walker) and first seriously gnarly injury. I've started telling people I was attacked when I saved a toddler from a very small bear.

Right After the accident:

A few days later already looking like a sweet bear attack scar: