Teams are made up of individuals. Without them, there is no team.

Welcome to Team 12in12in2012's Fundraising home page!!!

You are now part of the team!!

Follow me on my blog http://12in12in2012.blogspot.com/

I have a mission-to help find cures and more effective treatments for blood cancers. To accomplish that mission, I’m planning to run 12 half marathons in 12 months in the year of 2012!!! Three of those half marathons will be a Team in Training events!! But I will be participating in all events as a member of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Team In Training!

Like the other members of TNT, I will be raising funds to help find cures and better treatments for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma. I’m improving the quality of my life by participating and with your support, I can help improve the quality of life for patients and their families as well.

Please make a donation in support of my efforts with Team In Training and help advance the research for cures. In keeping with my themes of the number 12, my goal is to raise $12,000 over the entire year of 2012!!

Here is where we are so far!!!

The Half Marathon Line Up:

Jan: 21st Auburn, AL - running with Genny Natter Hamblen!

Feb: 18th Run the Reagan, Atlanta GA

Mar: 17th DC Rock N Roll - running with Alicia Washkevich!

Apr: 28th Nashville, TN Country Music *TNT event*

May: 19th Williamsburg, VA

June: 3rd San Diego, CA *TNT event*

July: Chicago, IL

Aug: Providence, RI

Sep: Virginia Beach, VA *TNT event*

Oct: Crawlin Crab, Hampton VA

Nov: Savannah, GA

Dec: Kiawah Island, SC

Friends and Family are welcome to join me in any run!!!

Thanks to all my donators/sponsors/partners in crime!!!

All of my previous 5 half marathon escapades are chronicled in my blog! Please feel free to take a look and see what has been going on!! http://12in12in2012.blogspot.com/

JULY!! Chicago!

This past weekend was the July Chicago Half Marathon, #7 of 12in12in2012!! I was so excited to see my cousin Anne, who is my ‘LLS Hero’ Uncle Pat’s daughter. We have always been close and grew up right down the street from each other. So, it was really special that she was able to take part in this.

I have to be honest in that I was not trained well for this race. My long runs had fallen off and I just have felt lousy the past month in regards to running. The heat really sucks it out of me and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t tired of doing a half marathon every month! Therefore, I was a little scared about this run. This is classic ‘Megan Natter’ racing, where I don’t train well but still do the race. And this was what I have been trying to avoid this year by doing a race each month. But I decided to go into this race with the simple goal of seeing 13.1 miles of Chicago, a city that I’ve never seen! During a race, we so often forget to just look around. We are so hunched over concentrating on the race that you rarely look up. Chicago has a fantastic skyline, so while I ran the race I just made sure to look up, to look around and to enjoy the run.

The race started and a few miles in, I literally remember thinking ‘Hello old friend’ and smiling. There is something so familiar and comforting in a long distance run. And I realized that I had truly missed it. Why had I been dreading this so much recently? The first 8 miles went by in a breeze and I thought to myself…’Maybe the running gods are smiling upon me today’. Ahhhh…sweet hope.

The last 5 miles went downhill pretty fast. But I’m proud of myself for not getting angry with myself. I laughed it off and thought, ‘Did you really expect to have an awesome race when you didn’t really train? Silly Megan!’. You truly run the race you train for and I had trained for an 8 mile race, not a 13 mile one! But for once, it was ok. I picked my head up and looked around, I smiled and just kept moving, albeit a little slower!

My Uncle Jim and his wife Linda, along with my cousin Anne, were there cheering me on and I was able to see them 3 times during the race! What a huge pick me up! I’m always so thankful for spectator supporters. It is hard to describe how amazing it is that someone comes out to watch you run. Linda had even made me a sign, which as many of you know, I love my signs. I’m amazed that I’m special enough for someone to make me a sign!

This year is a learning experience. Some lessons you can see coming and others are just complete surprises. I didn’t expect to enjoy this race as much as I did. I fully expected to be miserable. Honestly, I had a blast even amidst doing only an ‘ok’ race. But the biggest lesson I learned during the Chicago half was that I do truly like to run!! After 10 years of telling everyone that I hate running but do it to stay in shape, I realize now that I was lying to myself. It has taken 7 half marathons in 7 months to step back and see that running is a part of me. It is actually something that I love. What verified this realization was seeing the pictures my Uncle Jim took of me on the course. In every single picture, there is really only one emotion that describes my face and that emotion is Joy. What a surprise!

April - 50% there!!

So, WOW! We are officially 50% of the way to the 12in12in2012 official $12,000 goal!!! Thank you to all of you who have contributed!! You are all amazing!

So what does $6,000 mean to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society? Well, before I answer that question, let me introduce you to someone....

This young lady of 3 precious years old is named Megan (yes, it is a total coincidence but one that I believe God firmly had a hand in). Megan, or Meggie as her friends and family call her, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on April 4, 2010 when she was 18mos old. After a long struggle with recurring illness, her Mom (Kelly) attributed her continuous battles with ear infections and fevers to her introduction to day care. One day Kelly took her for a routine well-child appointment at the pediatrician's office and decided during the visit to have a lead blood test done because they live in a 100 year old home. The very next day they were called and asked to bring Meggie back to the doctor's office because something was not right with her hemoglobin levels. It was discovered after further testing that Meggie had Leukemia.

Two years later, Meggie is still fighting Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. "ALL" is caused by malignant, immature white blood cells that continuously multiply and are overproduced in the bone marrow. It can cause damage and death by crowding out normal cells in the bone marrow, and by spreading to other organs. Meggie is quite the little fighter and has gone through Chemotherapy and receives spinal taps to check for Leukemia. Yes, you read that correctly... SPINAL TAPS.

The above is not written by LLS or TNT. I wasn't given a manuscript. Meggie is my co-worker Stacy's niece. As I've run these half marathons and raised this $6,000, I've met more and more people that have a connection to Leukemia/Lymphoma. They are the fighters or the parents, siblings, cousins and friends of someone fighting cancer. And they are crazy inspiring. Meggie could be anyone's child. She could be my niece or my godchild. Cancer doesn't discriminate. Meggie will be my honored hero for my San Diego half marathon and you are going to see/hear a lot more about her!! Her name and picture will be on my jersey and will serve to remind us as to why we are doing this. Why you all have donated to LLS once, twice or multiple times this year!!

It is hard for me to not get caught up in the running of this journey. It's hard for me to not place the running as the #1 priority. Honestly, the running is easier to do! Fundraising is hard! But little girls like Meggie remind me that the Fundraising really is #1. But sometimes we need a good reminder about what your money is going towards. So here is of what our $6,000 is doing...

$7,500 Funds a program to educate 200 doctors on emerging treatments for a specific blood cancer.

$3,500 Funds a program to educate 70 nurses on emerging treatments for a specific blood cancer.

$1,000 Provides one week’s salary for a medical researcher who may discover key information for developing curative treatments for blood cancers.

$1,000 Makes possible one-on-one conversations with health care specialists who provide patients with information about their disease, treatment options, and helps prepare them with questions for their health care team.

My reminder came straight from Meggie's Mom, Kelly "I can't begin to tell you how appreciative and thankful my family and I are to have people like you supporting the fight to beat this dreadful disease. Keep fighting and running, we are supporting you all the way!"

It's a new tax season folks.... :)

Oct 9th 2011

I've now been called crazy and also been asked if I just have too much time on my hands!! So, the question is 'Why are you doing this?'

I was on a plane flying to Birmingham and reading Runners World Magazine. Every issue always has an inspirational story of a runner and it got me thinking. I would like to be inspirational! And then I sadly realized that I always train for an event, complete the event and then fall off the running wagon for a few months. Eventually, I struggle and start running again....all the while wondering why I had stopped in the first place. And it hit me that my personal goal for 2012 should be to train consistently. Then that goal turned into 12 half marathons in 12 months!!

So, why try to accomplish this goal through Team in Training? After alerting my friends and family of my new personal goal and receiving different levels of support, I realized that this was bigger than just me. And I realized that my challenge to myself could be an avenue for something bigger, something more important.

In 2007, my Uncle Pat was diagnosed with Chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He and his family have since fought the disease persistently but gracefully. And I'm happy to say that he is now in remission from CLL! Watching our reserved but strong family each deal with his illness made me feel helpless. Feeling helpless is not something that anyone is comfortable with but it made me want to take action to make the world a little better. I never really knew what I could do. After setting this personal running goal for myself, I finally realized how I could help my Uncle and many others! And that is through Team in Training!

The decision to join Team in Training is one that I did not make lightly. I do not like to ask people for money. It makes me insanely uncomfortable! But I'm stepping out of my comfort zone and running 12 half marathons! So, I will certainly step out of my comfort zone in order to raise money to cure a disease that has affected me as well as so many others. The knowledge that I could help alter the world is enough to run a million steps, let alone a few half marathons!