Larry Lewis honored at a Brookville High school game

I'll be running the Yuengling Shamrock Marathon on March 21, 2010. With my goal of $2500, 81% of each donation will go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

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WE DID IT!!!!!! (3/22/10)

Not only did I complete my first (and last) marathon but I also exceeded my fundraising goal! Thanks to everyone who gave. The neat thing is that no one person gave enough to put me over the goal, but I couldn't have done it without each one of you. I thank you so much for the sacrifice that you gave no matter how big or how small.

In case you are wondering, I finished with a time of 5 hours 32 minutes and 19 seconds. That was good enough for position 208 out of 227 in my Division (males 30-34), 1448 out of 1669 for the males and 2293 out of 2770 overall. It's not as good as I had hoped but I finished and that's all that matters. Like someone said yesterday, we get the same medals as the Kenyans. Team In Training raised over $250,000 during this race alone!! That's the most awesome part about the weekend!

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Where have all of the roads gone? (2/10/10)

Last week, I was feeling a little run down (get it, run down.. nevermind). I decided to take the runs during the week off. I felt a lot better by Thursday. Saturday, I ran in my 2nd Krispy Kreme Challenge.

So now I'm back on my running regime. I have to somehow figure out a way to navigate 20 miles of road without having to run through snow. Wyndhurst just isn't big enough to run that much. So I'm setting my sights to the Sandusky area. Ana's school is over there and I know that the neighboorhood is connected to a lot of the roads on the north sidde of Fort Avenue. Hopefully it won't be too icy and quiet enough so that I can run on the roads. Unfortunately, I'll have to time my run and then later find out how far I ran. I was able to run 18 miles in 2 hours 44 minutes two weeks ago. So I think that an extra 20 minutes ought to be about right.

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Adventure on Blackwater Creek Trail (1/18/10)

This past Saturday, I ran the most that I've ever ran, 15 miles. This weekend the miles will increase to 16. The miles are coming easy now, but the trail at Blackwater Creek was an interesting experience Saturday. There was a mile of icy trail that I navigated twice. The tunnel had mounds of huge ice blocks that had fallen from the cliffs. All of it was worth it. Not only am I helping out people by raising money for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (with your help), I had the chance to run beside deer along the path, not once but three times. The deer just watched me as I passed on the same trail that they were standing on. I was almost as though they were wondering why someone would have been out there.

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Still going strong (1/6/10)

I ran over the holidays which was nice because it allowed me to eat a lot. The weekend runs are building up to some pretty high mileage. This past Saturday I ran 12 miles in 22 degree weather and high winds. I didn't realize it until I was done that I had developed an ice mullet from where the sweat had frozen. It took over a half hour in my house before it finished melting.

Larry has talked to doctors in Richmond and is on another round of chemo to get him further into remission. He is also looking at possibly doing an allo-stem cell transplant (from someone else) instead of an auto-stem cell transplant (from himself). Please keep him in your prayers as this is not an easy decision and is probably one of the most stressful things on his mind right now.

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Over half way there!! (12/8/09)

I am truly surprised by everyone's generosity. As of yesterday, I am over 50% of my fundraising goal. The training miles ave taken me on over 2.5 marathons worth so far. Those miles have been spread out over the last four and a half weeks. All told, my training will have me running 465 miles. Thats 17.75 marathons!!! At my normal pace of 9.4 minute-miles, that puts me on the road running for over 72 hours!!

Larry's journey is looking promising. He went for a chemotherapy treatment on 11/30. They mentioned that the last one around the end of the year might not be needed to get him into remission. He will be travelling soon to VCU in Richmond to start discussing the possibility of the auto-stem cell transplant.

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An Update on Larry (11/11/09)

Larry has received a couple of hyperCVAD chemotherapy treatments from UVA. He has had one treatment of the first half and one treatment of the second half. His blood counts have responded very well. Yesterday he mentioned that his spleen had reduced greatly in size. It used to extend almost to his waist and then spread around most of his body. Now it's only about double it "normal" size.

The nurse coordinator is saying that he might only need 4 instead of 6 treatments to get into remission. That means that his last treatment could come as early as the beginning of January!!!

After that they'll start looking at doing an auto-stem cell transplant, where they try and collect maybe 10 million of his own stem cells over several days' time. These will be filtered to only have the good cells. After that they basically give him a lethal dose of chemo and after a couple of days, they give him back his stem cells so they can save him. He's obviously worried about this, so pray for strength and courage for Larry and Susan.

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A Story from a Friend

After emailing a few people, I quickly discovered how prevelant blood cancers are in the people that I interact with every day. Like everything else in our lives, we have blinders on when we are not directly involved with an aspect of this fallen world. So here is a story that Kevin Morgan shared with me

"My brother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma seven years ago. A bone marrow screening was done within the family and luckily my sister's marrow matched the donor criteria. The first round of marrow transplant was unsuccessful and did little in slowing the cancer. A experimental method at the time was administered after many months of negotiations with the insurance company. This method would remove my brothers marrow, irradiate his marrow and then mix it with my sisters before replacing. This seemed to work and he has been in remission ever since. On the down side, his body continues to reject my sisters marrow. Over the years he has dwindled from a 200 pound person down to about 90 pounds. He has recently been given a feeding tube to subsidize his caloric intake and has gained a few pounds. In the end, he is still fighting but has started his bucket list and realizes that his time is limited."

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Racing to Save Lives

Welcome to my Team In Training home page.

I'm training to participate in the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. 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 all individuals who are battling blood cancers. These people are the real heroes on our team, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure!

I decided to do this after a good friend, Larry Lewis, was diagnosed with Mantle-cell Lymphoma. Larry is extremely generous with his skills. I've seen him spend numerous hours helping others with their computer problems. He also donates his time building and maintaining the Brookville High School's website. A lot of people in Lynchburg use this site for community information even though they have no connection with the high school itself. Larry is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatments at the hospital at UVA. Please keep him in your prayers.

I also found out that my neighbor's grandaughter has leukemia. She is my daughter's age. They played together last night.

Please make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance LLS's mission.

I hope you will visit my web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress. Thanks for your support!