My name is Yanni Robel, and I'm a survivor.

My dear family and friends,

I had so much fun during my (first!) half-marathon at Portland and am so proud of my own accomplishment that I want to take it to the next level. I want to keep pushing my limit and see where it will take me.

Life is short, and being a survivor, I am being reminded every day to live my life to the fullest and welcome any challenge ahead of me and to dream big. I want to be able to look back and say, yep, did that, done that. Oh did that one too, so did that one. Is that too much? Maybe, but I’m about to go all out here.

I’m going to run Full Marathon. Yes. 26.2 miles of crazy.

Wait, I’m not done.

To spiced it up a bit, I’m going to do Disney Coast-to-Coast Challenge. Yes, I mean exactly like that page said (assuming you clicked that link). I’m going to run Full Marathon at Disneyworld on January 8, 2012 follow by Half-Marathon at Disneyland on January 29, 2012 with Team In Training (TNT)

Since I have been training for my half-marathon, I'll be continuing to train for this marathon. In the next three months, I'll be running all over Seattle and vicinity , increasing my miles each week so I can run those pesky 26.2 Miles. I know I can do it. I know I will do great.

Why I am running

I'm one of the lucky survivor who can have some new normalcy in life because a lot of smart people put thousands of hours and a lot of money into research and development to improve my quality of life. I have lost friends, and watch few of them suffer. I felt helpless and often wonder if I can do more to help than what I already did.

This event allow me to do something, and it will allow YOU to do something as well. Remember all those times you asked me if there's anything you can do for me? This is one of those.

Some of you have been so generously supporting me in my previous fundraising efforts and I thank you very much from the bottom of my heart, however, I am going to shamelessly ask again for your help. Why? Because not only you are helping ME, you are giving me and the rest of the blood cancer survivor hope. You are helping give the families of the survivors tremendous support because that’s what the money you are giving for. Leukemia & Lymphoma Society offered incredible support to a particular patient AND their family.

TNT's endurance training program whose goal is to support, through fundraising and advocacy, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s mission to improve the quality of life for patients with leukemia and related blood cancers to aid in search for a cure, to improve public and professional education, along with advocacy and community service.

I'm so thrilled to be participating in this wonderful event, but as is true with so many things that are really worth doing, this can't be a solo effort. I need your support not only to raise the $6,000 donation but also to muster up the internal strength I know I will need to meet the physical and emotional challenge that lie ahead.

Please express your support in one or more of the following ways:

• Donate online to my online fundraising page here
• Send a tax-deductible donation made out to LEUKEMIA & LYMPHOMA SOCIETY to me. Please email me directly, and I'll give you my address to send the check to or do a donation online via my personal fundraising page here
• Help me spread the word about what I'm doing. Mention the Disney Marathon to 3 friends and ask if they'd be interested in sponsoring me? wait, make that 5 friends!
• Many companies match their employees charitable giving, if you decided to support me and do a donation, please ask your human resources about it and ask them to match your gift!
• Send me your inspirational and encouraging thoughts, poems, jokes, stories etc via email at yanni_robel@msn.com. Oh I could use a lot of pray to for the success of this run and continuous health for me as well!
• Follow my training progress at http://yannirobel.com/running and cheer me via twitter as I train. You can follow me on twitter at @YanniRobel

Thank you for considering a donation to this worthy cause and for supporting the cause that I believe in and be part of saving life. I personally thank YOU.

Much love,

Yanni

Do you know that every five minutes, someone in United States diagnosed with blood cancer?