Oh my goodness! I can not believe that I have one week left before my half marathon!! I am soo excited and nervous as well. I cant wait to be able to trust my training and run for those that are fighting the fight or that have lost the fight to cancer. The journey getting here has been a great one. I am so grateful that I have been allowed this opportunity to try it again and finish what I started over a year ago!

I am going to do some last minute fundraising to see if I can raise some more funds. There are a few funds that we are waiting to arrive and I would love for you to add to the pot so that lives can be changed and saved.

I am also in need of names to add to my running top! Do you have any cancer survivors that you know or An angel that is in your heart and has lost their fight and went to rest with the lord? I would love to run in honor/memory of them! They are my inspiration to keep doing the good things that I try to accomplish in this world!

CANCER SUCKS!!!

I am still training and fundraising. Its just been a little hard to blog here as much as I would like! Fall is here and things have started to cool down a lot - thank goodness!! It is tough to run in heat, humidity and not so cool weather.

When I trained with Team in Training last year, the highest I had ever gotten in mileage was about 7 miles. This year I have passed 7 and I am up to 10 miles now! What an accomplishment considering all that happened last year with the accident. I am beyond blessed and I count my blessings very cheerfully!

Running longer distances is not eeaasssyy for me yet. Not sure if it will ever be a ball in the park, but I am hoping that it will be one day soon! Last weekend I did 8 miles with a new friend and those 8 miles gave me a run for my money. I kept thinking to myself - will I ever get this down and be able to do my half marathon?

What goes on during my longer runs, may not be the same that goes on during someone elses.

1. These runs are not pretty.

2. Most people think GOSH how are they able to run the whole time - I dont run the WHOLE time, but try to focus on running the whole time. I have to take a little walk break here and there. Sometimes more than I would like to.

3. After mile 1, I start talking to myself about how I can re-arrange things to do less miles and make up for it later.

4. After mile 2, Im thinking "oh my gosh, I really have a long way to go. Maybe I can just call my husband to come pick me up."

5. I do have to stop and stretch my legs a little bit and then I get back into it.

6. I freeze my water bottle the night before and my hand is pretty cold for a little bit. Well FREEZING, but that gets old fast.

7. I constantly talk to myself to keep going and keep pushing.

8. After mile 5, I think I was in completely and wasnt thinking about turning around or quitting much anymore. After all, I did have to run the other 5 miles back home!

9. I start to really think this whole half marathon thing is possible. (I had a few doubts along the way)

10. When I arrive home after a long run like 10 miles, I am almost good for nothing else. T.I.R.E.D mama, is what I am.

Even though the run was a little rough, I enjoyed every minute of it! It was amazing to see how my body was able to handle all of that and for me to see different areas of our town that I used to only think about driving to, much less walking or running to. It really opens your eyes to so much!

I am ready to tackle some more miles! Help me with my fund raising by donating today - on the right side of this post - click the donate now tab

I am trying to make it a goal of mine to update this page more than I have recently! This weekend marks the 1 year anniversary for the passing a sweet little angel named Ryan Raffel. He battled Leukemia and because there wasnt enough research or a cure, he grew tired of fighting and went back to his place in heaven. He will always be in my heart!

On a training note, I ran 6 miles yesterday with 3 of my amazing friends. I had to go out early to make sure I was back by 7 am in order for my husband to go to work (my daughter was sleeping). We did 6 miles last weekend and it felt great outside. We were sweaty for sure, but we felt great! This run yesterday!!!!........We felt like we were going to give out! It was so Humid out, that we were a sweaty mess. I had to keep pouring water from my bottle on my body to try to keep it cool.

Even though it was a little tough, I am glad that we did it! Closer and closer to our goal! So exciting!

This coming weekend, the long run will be 7 miles and I will be doing it on Sunday morning because I am a participating vendor at a local event this Saturday :-)

Please take a moment to donate and help me to reach my goal of 2,000 to help put an end to blood cancers!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! It was definitely a wet one in spells. It has been raining so much here lately, I have been able to figure out the pattern. There seemed to be a down pour every 2 - 3 hours and the down pour would only last about 10 -15 minutes. Then it would be nice an sunny again. Unless there was an all day rain session going on.

Lakes, rivers, and ponds all around were getting so high. Some were even at the flooding point. All the rain really made it hard to get my booty in duty to want to work out! I did manage to get a few workouts in along with starting some core training. I found this really good article that was floating around on Facebook by Runner's World on core training and knew immediately that I had to start it.

http://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/fast-abs?cm_mmc=Facebook-_-RunnersWorld-_-Content-Training-_-BetterAbs

I am totally feeling a difference now because..........

(Crystal Keefer Designs is my personal business page - My work)

We were finally able to see some good old sunshine on Sunday which was AWESOME! I got in my "Long run" for the week and went to the pool with my daugther for some relaxation and pool water play.

On saturday, I did workout. Planned on running, but I did a good warm up on the eliptical, the 5 core exercises, weights (legs) and finished off with some "give it all you got" cardio on the stair climber and eliptical.

Ready to start the week training right and staying focused!

Please consider donating for a good cause - to help put an end to blood cancers! We can do this together!

I have not had much time to update my page due to some critcal issues with my mom the past 2 weeks! We were very close to losing her from complications during surger last week and boy was that one of the toughest days of my life! The saying "you don't know what tomorrow will bring" takes on a whole new meaning when you dont know what the next second will bring! All you can do is keep the faith and believe for a good outcome.

Things have calmed down a bit and my mom is on her way to recovery as she had to have her left leg amputated almost to the knee. I am so grateful that she is still with us and that she will have the opportunity at a new start! I just had to take a picture with her and my daughter Constance!

So far this week, I have done 1 hour of Zumba and ran 1 mile on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I ran 2.3 miles.

I didnt get a chance to get my cross training in yesterday, due to my mom getting moved from the hospital into rehab. But it is on Today - Im swapping the rest day from the training schedule for yesterday's tempo run!

I will also start with one of my fundraising ideas of sweet treat pails to sell for the 4th of july. I am excited as I sold some personally 2 years ago for easter and they did extremely well!

Here are pictures of both below

In the mean time, You can always donate on the right side of this page! I would love your support and those that are fighting cancer are counting on it!