My Fundraising Page

Only 1 Week To Go!

April 18, 2009. We finished our 11th week of training at Lake Del Valle in Livermore, long one of my family's favorite places to hike and swim with the dogs. This time despite it being 8 am, brutal for a musician, the water was in the low 60 degrees, unlike our first open water experience, where it had been 10 degrees colder. In a wetsuit, it felt positively balmy. I swam about 40 minutes, and during the last half managed to find some rhythm. Afterwards I did my usual lamenting about being slow and got some more tips from other swimmers. One thing I can't duplicate is that many of the swimmers started in High School. Parents, put your kids on swim team so when they decide to take up triathlons in their 30s they're ready!

However, I kicked ass on the bike. Another woman and I paired up and rode 13 miles out on Mines Road. Beautiful! It was great to accomplish a 26-mile bike ride with a modicum of speed, and I knew it would be our last chance to get that distance in before we began tapering (reducing intensity/mileage to conserve energy for the race).

After we had a great honoree picnic in which several cancer survivors and family members spoke about their experiences, and the meaning of our support. The pain of cancer lingers, but it's deep. Cancer is not a disease you eliminate quickly, it's a process. These people and their families have been so challenged. It's depressing and scary. You want to look away. You want not to think about mortality. You want to crack a joke, lighten the mood, not catch what they caught.

But it's just as human to want to find meaning. To know that you survived cancer, beat it, only to go on to better things. Or to know that you got a few years you wouldn't have had before new chemotherapies were invented, and you use those years to do the very thing you have always known you were meant to do. Or that after coming back from the brink of death you met the woman of your dreams, a woman whose heart beats with enough strength for the two of you and everyone you know.

At the honoree picnic, I realized that these stories were those of true love. Sometimes love seems fictional. The stuff of movies and department stores. Yet there it was, catching unexpectedly in our throats. We can't live without you.

April 14, 2009. I can't believe how quickly this has gone by, yet when I think back to all the wonderful moments we have had as a team working toward this goal I realize how much we have accomplished.

A few weeks ago we swam for 45 minutes in the 51-degree San Francisco Bay at 8 am, then ran an hour to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. The next day, we ran the Rhodes Race 5K at Lake Merritt, where I was the 4th woman and 3rd in my age group. While my time was virtually the same as last year (24:56), my pace was much more consistent, so I think I am learning how to be a more efficient runner rather than starting out too fast, dying in the middle and kicking it at the end.

Last weekend, for our big brick workout we rode our bikes 15 miles in Danville, through verdant hills past red farmhouses off Camino Tassajara. Then we ran 15 minutes. Then repeat. I had planned to do three of these in a row, but coach Paul told me quality was better than quantity, and to push myself hard on the second rep. I did, and I was totally spent!

I appreciate the support of everyone thus far. Now it's near the deadline for fundraising == please make your donations soon and help me spread the word! My race is looming... May 3 here we come!

==Alexa

April 5, 2009. Today I ran the Rhodes Race 5K at Lake Merritt in Oakland for the second year. Matt and Claire are the inspiring, super nice and funny couple who launched this race last year to raise money for their perennial cause, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). Claire is, in addition to being a blazing-fast runner, a dynamo at organizing such things. There were age group medals, post-race baggies and three tents promoting various causes. There was also a larger group, proof that even in a down economy people will come to be a part of what you have built. I am truly impressed because dealing with bureaucracy and paperwork is one of my absolute peeves (I can't seem to drag myself to the post office even), and I know this event required permits galore.

Anyway, the cool thing about it was that I started fast, but probably not too fast, and then settled in a 8-minute/mile pace and stayed there. I was talking to myself in my head the whole time, telling myself to loosen my shoulders, pick up my feet, quick feet, quick turnover, stay focused, look we're halfway done, etc. The last mile made me want to puke but I didn't do what I have done recently a lot, which is to give up 3/4 of the way through and slow down drastically, then kick it in at the end.

Once that was over, it was fun chatting with all the people I now know through last year's and this year's Team in Training experiences, as well as through other races.

The most moving moment came when one of our honorees, Ben, ran across the finish line. He's only just off chemo, a little boy with straw-blond hair and cherub cheeks who has been going to the hospital for blood draws and spinal taps and chemo and steroids to treat leukemia for the last three years. Only a week before, his dad told me, he wouldn't have been able to do this, but today he biked nearly three miles and ran up the last hill to the finish line. He looks perfectly healthy. But his parents and older brother have been through hell, almost losing him three times, according to his dad. The steroids he takes give him "'roid rage" == they dose him with "the same quantity Jose Canseco would take, in his tiny body." Apparently leukemia doesn't like steroids, for reasons unknown.

I thought of my healthy boys and felt so blessed. There, but for the grace of God ... I also prayed Ben would be one of the lucky ones whose chances for health are all the better thanks to research funded in part by LLS. My grandmother lost her life to leukemia as a young mother. When LLS was founded in 1949, a diagnosis of leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma was almost always fatal. Today, survival rates have doubled and tripled for some blood cancers. Now, 88 percent of children with the most common form of leukemia will be cured.

I am slowly making my way toward raising $2500 for LLS for the second year in a row (last year I raised over $3000). But I don't have much time left == only until the end of this month! You can make a donation online and receive your tax receipt immediately via email.

==Alexa

Pssst: You can see videos and updates on my blog!

February 2009. I'm back ... for another year of training as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. I enjoyed the physical and philanthropic challenge of training for last year's Wildflower Olympic Triathlon so much that I had to repeat the experience!

The scenic Wildflower triathlons are held on May 2 at Lake San Antonio in Monterey County, California. The Olympic distance consists of a 1500 meter (.9 mile) swim, a 40 km (25 mile) bike race and a 10 km (6.2 mile) run.

All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. I am completing this event in honor of my grandmother, who died of leukemia as a young mother. Through Team in Training I have met many other cancer survivors, young and old, who inspire me to live as fully as I can.

Please help advance LLS's mission. This is a quality charity that uses 80% of all donations to directly fund cancer researchers, clinicians and patients. In this economy, LLS has made sure that it runs as efficiently as possible so that your generosity can have the profoundest effect on the lives of cancer patients.

Check back here and on my blog to see my progress. Thank you for your support!

P.S. Here's a video of me enjoying the lunacy of last year's first SF Bay training swim!