My Fundraising Page

Racing to Save Lives

*Please scroll down for updates*

Life is crazy as usual as we’re moving internationally again, looking for a house, juggling work and boys, and Aaron’s slaving away at finishing his dissertation, AND I decide to train for a marathon. What?! I know. Insane. I honestly got pulled into this by peer pressure initially, but am so glad I did. A group of friends from Houghton College whom I met freshman year, have spent the past 15 years since we graduated staying in touch and getting together each year. This year, to mark our 15 year milestone, we’ve decided (about half of us officially) to train together with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training to raise money for cancer research. One of these girls, Kristin Hodulick’s, husband Gideon was diagnosed with Acute Promylocetic Leukemia in 2000. Praise God he’s cancer free today! He was told that the treatment for APL was "discovered" in the 5 years prior to his diagnosis!

It is estimated that 44,270 men and women will be diagnosed with and 21,710 men and women will die of leukemia in 2008. It is also estimated that 1 in 79 men and women will be diagnosed with leukemia in their lifetime, and this cancer targets all races and ages from babies to the elderly. Every 10 minutes, someone dies from a blood cancer. However, in the past decade, thank God that the likelihood of dying from most blood cancers is decreasing by significant percentages.

With leukemia touching so close to home for our group, we’ve been motivated to raise a combined goal of $27,800 for the Society. Now that’s making a difference! My portion of that goal is $4,800. I seriously need your help. I’m dragging my un-athletic body (Kathy took more than her portion of those genes!) through 6 months of early morning wake-ups and long, exhausting runs (I did 9 miles yesterday!) with the knowledge that my life has been touched by cancer and that I can make a difference in future cancer patients’ lives with every footstep pounding the pavement. Both of my grandmothers battled breast cancer and my aunt is battling the disease of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). I run to celebrate cancer research’s success in Gideon’s life and for the love of these three strong ladies. Please join me in making my hard-earned steps save lives! Please consider sponsoring me at $1 or $2 per mile of the Nike Women’s Marathon (26.2 miles) in San Francisco this October. No pledge is too small! My deadline is September, but I’m going to need encouragement to keep going soon.

Thank you so much for your encouragement and support!

You can visit this website to donate and/or follow my fundraising progress, as well as my running progress. The link is: http://pages.teamintraining.org/soh/nikesf08/grouthe .

If you’d like to follow the Houghton girls blog and see our progress towards $27,800, go to: http://nikejournal.blogspot.com/

God bless you!

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Update 9/12/08

Thank you all for the encouraging notes and overwhelming support both physically with hugs and running partners and mentally with encouraging notes, and financially with your overwhelming generosity. Together we’ve raised $3,900 for blood cancer research! Absolutely amazing! Thank you! Thank you!

I’ve been deeply touched by this whole process of training with Teams in Training to benefit The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. From the exertion and strain of putting my body through miles I would have thought impossible (running, no less), to meeting cancer survivors and patients with heart-breaking stories, to the flood of personal support from friends, many of whom frankly don’t understand leukemia, but are giving in support of me – I’m really overwhelmed by it all. And the mere fact that I’m 427 miles into training, six weeks away from race day, and running 20 miles (again!) in the morning takes enough mental energy that it’s easy for me to forget that I am $920 under my goal of $4,800 for the Society. My first fundraising deadline is September 19th, one week away, and I am asking if you would consider making a donation to support me in this marathon and raise money for cancer research.

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Update 8/25/08

Hi there,

If you’ve not figured it out yet, I’m pretty sure that crazy follows me. Let me give a sort of update on where things stand in Ginny World at the moment:

Crazy #1: I completed a 20 miler yesterday!!!!

Crazy #2: My sons woke up my sister yelling, “Mommy’s gone!” at 7 am. I really should be arrested.

Crazy #3: Only my quads are a little sore. I really should be more stiff.

Crazy #4: 4 of my toes are black and screaming at me for not buying these fancy new shoes 20 miles earlier.

Crazy #5: THE NIKE WOMEN’S MARATHON IS LESS THAN 8 WEEKS AWAY!

Crazy #6: You lovely people have donated over $3,100 of my $4,800 goal for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Crazy #7: That just leaves $1,700 to go by Sept. 19th.

Crazy #8: My husband is a college professor. Really weird.

Crazy #9: My husband is a single college professor. (I’m still in Dayton with the boys, waiting to find housing.) Really frustrating.

Crazy#10: The stability we left New Zealand to find still eludes us.

More later when we have news to report (like an address and other minor details like that).

Thank you for the support both in prayers and funding for my marathon. I really do feel like I have a team gathering around me. Leukemia is hard to wrap your mind around unless you’ve been touched by it, and I appreciate you all giving so freely to support blood cancer research. I met a little girl who goes to Dayton Christian (my alma mater). She’s in first grade and is in remission. Her story breaks my heart, because I can’t imagine being told that my 18 month old has a terminal illness. Thank God for hope! I can run to that!

If you haven’t yet donated or could spare a bit more this month, please do so as my deadline is less than 4 weeks away. (Kiwis – try a 5 digit post code – bogus 0 on the end is fine, OR jot down your credit card details in writing and post it to me at the address below.) Please help me raise the remainder of my goal

Let’s together give hope to another family with a little girl battling leukemia. I’ll do the sweating. You just cheer me on.

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Update 7/20/08

Last night I carefully put together my running route for my solo 14 mile run on mapmyrun.com. I've become quite obsessive about this marathon business. I'm finding the knowledge that I have to drag my body 26.2 miles in mid-October is scaring me more than enough to be more than religious about training. I must spend hours a week reading marathon and running websites, with everything from nutrition to how to tie my shoelaces, and pouring over my training plan and routes. And I'm becoming intimate with Four Months to a Four Hour Marathon. Thanks for the tip, Di.

So last night as I plotted my route and resisted the temptation to avoid hills (this is San Francisco we're training for here!), I came to the sinking realization that I was going to have to do my 14 miler alone. Completely solo. No water help. No fellow runners. No cycling husbands. Solo. (I was running from 6:30-8:45 and Aaron would have to be home with sleeping boys and my parents would surely still be in bed.) So needless to say, I went to bed a bit grumpy. I hate waking up before the sun EVER and my 12 miler last week was killer the last 2 miles.

This morning, I woke up as usual, flaling for a screaming alarm clock, successfully pummelling the snooze button before my light sleepers woke up for good, much earlier than is recommended for a grumpies-free day. I went through my pre-run readiness ritual and was in the car by 6:00. (I had also discovered last night that I would have to drive my route ahead of time, stashing water bottles at 3 mile intervals since I was going to be SOLO.)

All went well. I drove the route and surreptitiously tucked the water bottles into the four corners of Kettering, Ohio. I made it home by 6:40, feeling sleepier by the minute. I proceeded to stretch well, and clip my ipod into place. I started down the drive as I reached to turn my ipod on. Nothing. Tried again. Still nothing. Ugh. I must have erased my ipod when I thought I was just charging it last night. Terrible. Horrible. No good. I stood on the driveway contemplating and counting my options so long that two bunnies hopped within a few feet of me.

In the end, I went back to bed. There's no way I could do 14 miles SOLO without someone to talk to, give me water, OR sing to me. No way. I'll switch my Wednesday off day with today and run tomorrow. I suppose this is why we run with a team, eh?

THANK YOU, THANK YOU for being on my team and donating to blood cancer research. Efforts like ours will save more lives like Gideons!!

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Update 7/12/08:

Thought I'd send an update on this marathon business that I find myself in.

TRAINING

Whew. I really can't believe I'm about to say this, but I AM ACTUALLY ENJOYING THE PHYSICAL PORTION OF THIS TRAINIG PROGRAM. I really am. It took me a few weeks (OK. A month.) after committing to this endeavor to get up whatever I needed to get out of the house and run for the first time in 10 years, but after beating the mental hurdle of finding the correct time of day (I am NOT a morning person), I really am enjoying my runs.

I am up to training 5 days a week (about every few weeks one of those days is cross training) now with my long run on Sunday. I run 12 miles tomorrow. That's to my mom's and BACK. I remember a month and a half ago running TO her house and thinking that was a really big deal. Team runs are on Saturday and it's great to run with partners, although I've found my iPod to be pretty good company. At least I can't hear myself panting.

I feel really good physically and would appreciate your prayers to continue that way!

FUNDRAISING

THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATION AND YOUR SUPPORT! I am currently at $590 of the $4800. I am so grateful for your generosity and support in donating to the great cause of fighting blood cancer! You make running a marathon feasible!

STORY

Go here: http://nikejournal.blogspot.com/2008/07/dog-tired.html to read a story I wrote about a funny sight on my morning runs.

MISSION

I was particularly touched by the story of a boy named Sawyer here in southwest Ohio. To state things briefly, Sawyer died a few weeks ago after losing his fight with AML. His young parents sent an email with details upon learning he only had weeks left to live on their wedding anniversary. Stories like these strike me close to home, and I thank God every time with a prayer for my boys' health.

There are so many stories of boys like Sawyer. Please keep his family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time, and remember that every dollar that you donate helps in the fight against this cancer so that kids like Sawyer can beat this disease!

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7/10/08

Dog Tired

So ... this morning as I was panting (I'd rather say coasting) through mile 3 of 4, I encountered a sight I've seen regularly now on my short running route. If you haven't heard, our family is living in the guest house of a dear friend from high school ever since we fled my sister's when chicken pox struck. This neighborhood is on the upper end of the affluent spectrum, and so I do my runs through beautifully manicured lawns and gardens and stunning homes straight out of a magazine. I often share the road with fellow excercise enthusiasts -- wait -- they're the enthusiasts, I'm the mishap. Anyway, as you could guess from the income level of the homes in my temporary neighborhood, the demographics are pretty much retirees or middle-agers with rarely a child under high school age around. And most of the exercisers are women as I do my runs usually around 7:30.

So the first morning I saw a baby stroller approaching me on the road, I gave a double look, because young marrieds are not typically in this neighborhood. As I jogged closer, I thought, "oh! I was right. This is more like a grandma. She must be taking the grandbaby out for a stroll." I panted along listening to my Bon Jovi and geared up to smile and squeeze out a "Good morning" between breaths as we passed. I got the words out and looked down to smile at the baby. Girls. I kid you not. It was a dog in the stroller. A mini schnauzer. Toto. Geesh. That is a whole new take on "walking the dog". And I've seen this nice little pair quite regularly now.