Hi, friends - I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We are SO close to reaching our goal and I am tremendously, truly thankful for your support.

I am still wrestling with a nasty sprained ankle, but after a lot of heartache, I just decided I'll run and walk as my body requires and allows next month. What matters is raising money for families who need it, finding a cure and crossing the finish line in a vertical position.

With any luck, I'll be 100% in two and a half weeks (wow!!), but until then I'm showing myself some grace - and it's made all the difference.

To help us cross the fundraising finish line, Bradley has suggested a wonderful contest that dovetails perfectly with my love for monograms.

Don't you love a wooden monogram on a wall, as a door hanger or, as Mary Brooks' is, hung above a crib? (How else would she know her name, right? We monogram everything that doesn't move around here.)

We're raffling off a custom wooden monogram - every $5 donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society gets you one entry. (Donate $20 for 4 entries, $50 for 10 entries, etc.)

Donate $75 or more and bypass the entire contest; you'll receive your very own custom monogram, no raffling required! What a perfect gift for your valentine, a new baby or yourself!

The best part? Your entire donation is tax deductible, just in time for the new year, and your monogram is created and donated by the handsomest philanthropist I know, Bradley Smith.

The contest ends this Sunday, December 30th at 7:00 pm EST - we can't wait to see whose monogram Bradley will be making!

Hi, friends! November ended beautifully for us, running-wise. We headed down to Isle of Palms a week after Thanksgiving to catch up with Bradley's brother and sister-in-law and our precious nephew Connor, all of whom had flown in from London. My in-laws were in heaven having all three grandbabies, plus one on the way for Laura, under the same roof for a long weekend.

Cousins Connor and Mary Brooks show a little love at the beach

I aimed to run "just a little bit longer" than I had before and ended up enjoying (truly) a 6.55 mile run on the flat, sunny island. It was fantastic! Half a half marathon under my belt, I finally felt like this was happening - and I could do it!

A week later, last Saturday, I set out on Greenville's Swamp Rabbit Trail to put an eight miler under my belt. Two miles into things, I tripped on a (I'm fighting the urge to say "limb") speck of mulch on the path and took an epic tumble.

I ripped my favorite running tights, scraped up both palms, smashed one knee cap, rolled the opposite ankle and pulled a shoulder muslce - all while rolling into a pile of dirt. I couldn't do it again if I tried, y'all.

Thankfully, no one saw the fall; this made it hurt much less. I hobbled (actually, I ran - bad idea) back to my car and have spent the last week nursing my injuries.

I look like someone came at me with a baseball bat, but my blackened knee and swollen ankle have returned to their regular sizes. Tomorrow I will be reattempting that eight miler, and my dad has suggested full body armor; it's not a bad idea.

My ego and ankle are bruised, but in the meantime we are practically two-thirds of the way to my fundraising goal. Wahoo!!! Thank you so much for your prayers, words of encouragement and donations to our fight to find a cure.

We had a fun little fundraiser at Chick-fil-A, and it was fantastic to combine socializing, waffle fries and a really fabulous cause. We appreciate each of y'all who came out!

MB made a valiant attempt at the chicken sandwich, but it never happened...

If you haven't given, would you consider a gift of any size (100% tax deductible!)? 'Tis the season to give back, and our honored patient is just one of many recipients of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's good works.

If you haven't heard me rave about adorable Katie-Belle before, check out her story over at the Blood Connections or GHS Children's Hospital websites; I promise you'll be as inspired and charmed as I am.

What we experienced with Mary Brooks was heartrending and continues to shape our lives in many ways; what Katie-Belle's family survived was prolonged, unrelenting and required just the kind of support LLS is able to provide.

We've had just a taste of that kind of struggle, and it's enough to motivate me to wrap up this ankle and keep moving.

Your cheers and good wishes keep me going, too - thank you for those. Please keep them coming, as I do have a ways to go in this final month of training. I promise to keep you posted!

And merry early Christmas! Would someone on your list appreciate a gift to LLS in their honor? I'm 5'9" - my jersey has LOTS of space to list the names of those I'm running in memory or honor of next month. Add your loved one's name to that list!

My goals for the remainder of this year: get to 100% of our fundraising goal, run farther every time I lace up and avoid every last speck of mulch on the Swamp Rabbit - this girl's got no more time to be couch-bound.

xoxo and Merry Christmas!

A.

Can you believe it's almost December? I'm still here and still running!

(Mary Brooks helps me stretch after runs, but she gets really disappointed when she finds out I've walked any hills. Quite the taskmaster, this one.)

After fighting six sinus infections between Memorial Day and Thanksgiving, I am back on my feet and making up for lost time.

Squeezing in long runs on home game weekends required serious prioritizing, and I'm a bit behind the standard preparatory schedule from sickness. But I am DOING it.

I've learned, as Bradley has been trying to teach me as long as we've known each other, that running is as much mental as it is physical.

While the voice in his head is one of quiet confidence, mine screams, "STOP STOP STOP! You aren't an athlete and you look utterly ridiculous."

The key to a good run for me is drowning out that voice with loud, embarassingly cheesy music and an unfailingly positive attitude. If that attitude isn't authentic at first, it becomes so after I realize it's not nearly as bad as it seems.

I can do this. You know why? Because I'm doing it. That's it. It won't be easy, and 13.1 miles is not a short distance for a girl like me. But I'm going to do it, and I'm going to make a difference in the lives of a lot of people while I'm at it.

The line above was my motto when we were in the hospital with Mary Brooks. It was the hardest time of my life, but I put one foot in front of the other. We made it, praise God! I keep telling myself this running and rundraising stuff has to be a cake walk in comparison. And it benefits people in equally heartbreaking spots - that's what pumps me up to get moving.

My team has been an incredible encouragement to me as well - particularly the coaches as I fought through some yucky antibiotics to do off short, piddly little runs as I could.

Our friends and family have been so uplifting; we have gotten notes from family members of lymphoma and leukemia survivors, and letters asking us to run in memory of loved ones who have lost their fights with cancer. There's no better reason to run, in my book, than the desire to help families like those.

Not a single person (besides me) has doubted my ability to do this, and the excitement I feel when i picture the Disney finish line is amazing! This. Is. Happening.

Thank you so much for your encouragement and support, y'all. It really means the world!

This year has been a crazy one, but we're watching two healthy little people grow up before our eyes, and working hard to help other families have that same privilege.

We're just over a third of the way to our goal, and we hope next week's fundraiser will help us along. Come join us at the Chick-fil-A at Cherrydale on Thursday, December 6th from 5:00 to 8:00 pm! Mention that you're with Team in Training and 15% of your ticket goes to the cause.

We're still fundraising and accepting donations, so please give if you're able and send your notes of encouragement if you're inclined. They make all the difference!

Thank you again, friends. Hope to see you (at Chick-fil-A?) soon! xoxo

Last weekend I got up at 5:45 am – not because Mac or Mary Brooks needed me, or because there was a fabulous online sale that couldn’t wait ‘til the sun came up. I woke up of my own accord, laced up my New Balances, popped a hat over my bedhead and joined a few other early risers to run.

A ballet teacher once told me that a girl should run only if she’s being chased by a bear; I used to subscribe wholeheartedly to this belief. My opinion is slowly changing, though, and not a moment too soon.

In just under four months, I will be running the Walt Disney World half marathon with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Team in Training (TNT).

You can take a minute to process that if you like - it still boggles MY mind! These feet are going to carry me 13.1 miles on January 12, 2013. 13.1 miles!

I’ve lived through a few things this year that I never would have thought I could survive. One of those, the illness and surgery of our newborn daughter, drove me to look for ways we could help other hurting families. At the other end of Mary Brooks’ ordeal, we were able to leave the hospital knowing she was healed; Bradley and I want other parents to hear that same good news.

In TNT, I have found a very meaningful way to do just that. With your support, I can help improve the quality of life for cancer patients and their families through research, cutting edge treatments, patient services and, perhaps best of all, the knowledge that they're not alone. Our own children may not have gotten their diagnosis, but we're in this fight, too.

Like the other members of my team, I will be raising funds to help find cures and better treatments for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma.

Would you consider helping me reach my goal of $2900? No gift is too small, truly, and your support means the absolute world to me.

Just as much as your (very appreciated) donations, I'd love your prayers, encouragement, "atta girl!" comments and virtual cheers. This will be no small feat for me, but it's nothing compared to the chemotherapy, uncertainty and heartache so many other families are walking through even as I write this.

As we learned the hard way, a tough day in the real world beats even the best day in the hospital - and we'd love to get every last family back in the real, HEALTHY world.

Please join me! Come back to check on my progress, keep up with my running and fundraising totals, and remind me that the long runs are for a bigger cause than just the soreness in my legs.

If you have a family member or loved one who is battling or has survived cancer, I would love to run 13.1 miles in his or her honor. Do let me know!

On that note, it's time to lace up those New Balances again. Thank you in advance for your support of me and for your gifts toward finding a cure for cancer.

xoxo,

A.