Aloha - Thank you all for your generous donations - Love, Myriam

On December 11th, I ran my first marathon the Honolulu Marathon 2011. I'm trained with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. On their behalf, YOU help me raise funds to help find cures and more effective treatments for cancer.

I ran in memory of Lisa Marie Velázquez of Coral Springs, FL. Lisa, 44 year old mother of two suffering from sarcoma succumbed to this cancer Saturday, September 10th - survived by her husband John and two sons – 15 year old Matthew and 7 year old Christian, please continue to keep them in your prayers, Lisa is missed by family and friends.

Thank you for your generous support of this GREAT cause - we had dinners together as a team and met many heros sharing the survivor stories and their pain for those they lost.

The marathon might be a mid-life crisis or just craziness but I'm doing it again. I ran in memory of Lisa Marie Velázquez and wore a ribbon with the name of each loved one's memory or honor you named when making your donation. Thank you for sharing your stories.

It was a great learning experience!

• I will definitely run another marathon – I hope to run my next one – I can only do better RIGHT :-)
• • Walking takes longer, you don’t sweat as much and the BAD NEWS if your Myriam you are waiting much too often to use Port of Potties – I swear without the “pee stops” it would have been 06:44:56 or less.
• I NEED REAL FOOD - by mile 16 I was craving something to digest that was not water, Gatorade, chomps or blocks this is after a full breakfast – oatmeal with banana and decaf coffee. Breakfast was at 2:30 am, met team at 3:30 am, race started 5:00 am and it took about 20 minutes to get to the start – oh I see 3 hours later I missed lunch altogether – will never run without REAL food.
• God hears your prayers - at mile 17 there was a driveway and owners set up corn chips, granola, nuts and carrots. I stopped and I scooped up the nuts and granola with corn chips for about 2 minutes. Everyone else was grabbing and going and I was standing and dipping. Then I grabbed 2 carrots slices – would have loved to take 2 carrots but that was not offered than a much happier Myriam started running oh that hurt – walking again.
• It gets tough towards the end – I was desperately watching for mile markers after mile 17 – they came very slowly.

It was a great experience. Thank you for the great support, sharing your many stories and giving me the opportunity to run on behalf of Lisa.

Mahalo!! (thank you in Hawaii)