Racing to Save Lives

Welcome to my Team In Training home page!

I am training to participate in the Nike Women's 1/2 Marathon in San Francisco on October 17, 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. While I am completing this event in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers, I am running for two special people in particular.

In May of 2009, my family lost one of our own to colon cancer. My uncle Patrick was a talented journalist and talented storyteller. At 63, he was taken from this world far too early. I first met Pat when I was 15 when we traveled in Oregon for our family's very first family reunion. Immediately, I was struck by my uncle's humor. Apparently, the idea of packing for this trip was too much to bear for Pat, so he chose to just go shopping and buy new clothes instead. The first morning, as the family packed around the table to eat breakfast, he walked out in one of his new shirts. The only problem, he forgot to remove the size sticker from the front! Being the fun family we are, we just let him walk around like that for a bit, until he discovered the mistake for himself. He finally did, and we all shared a good laugh. As was his style, however, it was Pat who would have the last laugh. Every day of the reunion from there on out, he deliberately "forgot" the size sticker on his t-shirt and had fun embarrassing the rest of us. Since his death, there has been a significant void in all of our lives.

While we were mourning the loss of my uncle, my aunt Jane was fighting her own battle with cancer, more specifically multiple myeloma. Just a few miles from Patrick's memorial service, Jane was preparing to undergo a stem cell transplant. Due to the fragile state of her immune system, she was isolated to one small wing of the hospital and all of her visitors had to take great care not to expose her to anything that could make her even more ill. Luckily, the transplant was a success and after months of healthy check-ups, she is now officially in remission!

People like Patrick, Jane, and all the others fighting cancer every day are the real heroes on our team, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure!

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!