My Fundraising Page

Week 6... 6/21

Well the last couple of weeks have been a little hectic! I signed up for a kick-butt Boot Camp class at my yoga studio that lasted 2 weeks, which meant I was getting up at 5AM to make it to the studio for my 6AM workout 5 days per week. I was pretty tired! Doing those circuit and strength workouts was awesome, but coupled with my running (which I still got in, in the evenings) my body felt a little beat up by this Friday. The results are great though! I'm starting to see some definition in my upper body and all the lunges and squats are keeping my legs strong for running!

Yesterday I ran my very first race ever! The team and I ran a 5K to benefit witness protection programs in Aurora. It was really cool! I ran with my friend Megan again and we helped push one another to get across the finish line. I ran the 3.2 miles without stopping and the best part was that I didn't come in last! I finished the loop strong and in a decent time (averaging about a 12.5 minute mile.) I'm getting a little stronger and faster every day and I can't wait to start our speed drills at the track next month.

Did some event planning with Megan and Anne Marie after the race and we're going to work with Kelli too to get some fun stuff going over the summer. Keep on the lookout for information about a wine tasting, silent auction and pub crawl coming up in the next few weeks!

Thank you to everyone who has donated this week! Mom, Steph, Carrie, Kevan, Kelly C, Marilyn, Stephan, Robin, Jason, Caroline, Brooke, Ilene, William, Danit, Kelly V and Sandra; you guys are wonderful! Thank you so much for your support and for helping Ellen and I get one step closer to our goal. xoxoxo

Week 4... 6/6

So I couldn't make it on the group run this morning due to location and carpooling mishaps, but I did my hour-run on my own and I feel great! After a week on my butt at home trying to talk myself out of a pretty gnarly sinus infection, I'm really pleased with my progress this week.

I found and downloaded a bunch of free running mixes from a website called www.motiontraxx.com. The DJ does a great job of putting together music that you can run to, setting each mix at a different BPM (beat per minute) so you can run at a different pace depending on which track you choose. Today was a 55 minute 140 BPM dance mix. Not my favorite music to listen to, but at least it keeps me occupied for an hour of running through the neighborhood.

I ran through Capitol Hill and down along 7th Avenue today, then headed north into Congress Park and back West again through Cheesman and into my neighborhood again. Nice and scenic; this is the best time of the year to be training for a marathon, by far. The loop was just over 4 miles which I ran in about an hour without stopping! I tried to run a lap around Cheesman yesterday but the birthday cake I'd eaten the night before decided to pinch my side halfway through so I didn't feel great about my performance that morning... Today, however, was awesome! It will be nice when I can start running a little faster, in the meantime I'm just happy to be consistent.

It's become pretty clear to me that I've really got to take care of myself in order to be effective at running. This means I've got to get more dilligent about eating clean. It's supremely frustrating to be running and have last night's cheesburger grab hold of my side and squeeze for dear life. I'm not a fan of side cramps at all, so the cheeseburgers are going to have to sit on the sidelines for a while.

Well, I'm off to clean and organize some things at home so I can maybe catch a yoga class before my friend Elizabeth's Birthday BBQ Extravaganza this afternoon. (Note to self: no cheeseburgers...)

Namaste!

Training Begins! 5/23

While the season officially kicked off two weeks ago, and I've been running on my own about three days/week since then, I actually feel like I've really started making progress toward my goal because I experienced my first group running session yesterday. What a morning! I didn't know how much I could really enjoy running until yesterday...

The alarm went off at 5:45 which elicited all sorts of groans and grunts from Tom's side of the bed. Well, maybe it was really me throwing my voice to his side of the bed... In any case, I was very reluctant to spring from my slumber on a grey, overcast Saturday morning. I started running through the possibilities for the morning; I might have to get on my bike to ride in the rain to our meeting point, to then run in the rain for 45 minutes, and then ride back home again, in the rain. (Are you sensing a theme here?)

Then I started to think about why I decided to run this marathon in the first place; I saw my friend Kelli's smiling face and thought about her training for the Denver marathon and battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma at the same time; I envisioned my sister Ellen running in NY that morning too, preparing for the same marathon I'm running; I imagined all of the other blood cancer patients I'm doing this in honor of. So I jumped out of bed and put my sneakers on.

The group run was really great! I hung towards the back with my teammate Megan who was a fantastic running partner. We traded side stiches it seemed, coincidentally needing to stop in unison. We shared stories about our experience with running and learned we both work in the finance industry. I encouraged her to meet me for a yoga class sometime, she assured me I'd see improvements in my endurance and body-composition in time. It was a great match; I can't wait to run with her again next weekend!

Luckily, the weather held all morning so my 15 minute ride to Confluence Park to meet the team, my 45 minute run, and my 15 minute ride back were totally dry. It felt great to be on my bike both before and after running. It gave me more energy to push myself a little harder on the pedals. I loved retracing my "steps" on the bike path on my way home on my Bianchi, thinking "oh, we ran by that building" and "that's where we turned around to head back". When I got home I hopped onto Run.com to map my route and figure out the mileage; almost exactly 3 miles altogether, pretty decent!

Despite having to wake up early on my day off, my morning with Team in Training was fantastic. I'm so excited I get to do this every weekend for the next five months to prepare for the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco! Help me get there: Check out my team page with my sister Ellen; learn more about LLS and why we're running together; make a donation there to help us support this incredible cause! (Please make donations on the team page rather than here so we can work towards our team fundrasising goal...)

Thanks for visiting! More to come as the season progresses...

Namaste...