Running for a Cause

Hi everyone. I want to introduce you to someone that is very inspiring and is pretty special to me. Her name is Stephanie.

I met Stephanie in 2009 when I signed up to participate with Team in Training (TNT) to complete my very first mini-marathon. Signing up was was a big deal for me at the time as I was not athletic and I was definitely not a runner. (I actually hated to run and now it's more like a love-hate relationship.)

When you sign up for TNT they don't just set you free. They give you a coach (Shout out to Nathan!), a training plan, and a mentor to help you with anything you may need. I was blessed to have Stephanie as a mentor. She not only encouraged me in my running but was also there to help with my fundraising. I had thought about bailing not thinking I could finish or raise the funds, but she was right there to encourage and even help with whatever I needed. She helped me cross that first finish line.

2009 - Morning of the Indy Mini
Stephanie is on the far left in the black hat, Coach Nathan is opposite in a white hate.

I had such an amazing experience that I signed up with TNT in 2010 to run the Indy Mini, and again in 2011 to run a full marathon in San Diego.

2010 - Morning of the Indy Mini
Once again, Stephanie is on the far left in the black hat, to the right of her is my friend Erika and Coach Nathan.

2011 - At breakfast after a training run. We were more of a "I run to eat group"

Christine, Me, and Stephanie

2011 - Stephanie's going away party.
Erika, Stephanie, Me

Stephanie continues to inspire me with the drive and passion she has. Knowing her, she is inspiring others as I type. She is one of a kind. One of the nicest and most caring people I have ever met, and I am happy to call her my friend.

Stephanie's Story

My name is Stephanie. I’m a runner. I didn’t used to be a runner. I used to be a person who really didn’t do much of anything but walk once in a while. I used to be a person who liked to think of herself as being ‘athletic’, but really never got out and did anything.

Then I lost my oldest sister to cancer – Acute Myelogenous Leukemia… the one you really didn’t want to get because the survival rate was pretty slim. She was 42. She had a 13 year old girl and a 10 year old boy. She had a husband. She had two sisters, and a mom and a dad, and cousins and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews. She was not perfect – who is? But she was pretty amazing. And in a 14 month time warp, we lost her. Just like that. I can safely say that we all pretty much miss her a LOT.

In the spring of 2008, when I got yet another postcard in the mail for Team in Training, a fundraising arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, I looked at the events being offered and realized one of them was in San Francisco (one of my sister’s favorite cities) and that this event was being held on what would have been her 50^th birthday (October 19, 2008.) I think I was getting a wake-up call from heaven to get off my butt and do something. I decided that maybe it was time. Time to stop making excuses:  of having babies and small children, of not enough time to train, of too much work to do, and “how in the world can I raise a few thousand dollars?”...pick a reason. So I signed up for the Nike Women’s Marathon. And if you’re going to go at all, you might as well go big. So I bypassed the half marathon and dove in to the full marathon – 26.2 miles. Me. The not-really-so-athletic person.

Do you know what I found out? Everyone can be an athlete. Not only did I train, and successfully (well, there were some unexpected knee issues along the way during that first race) complete a full marathon – and it did take me a while - but I realized that runners aren’t all tall, thin, muscular people. Along the course I ran with, I passed and I was passed by all shapes and sizes; fast and slow; wheezing and singing; joyous and pained; walkers and sprinters. And everyone celebrated everyone else for being out there and giving it a shot. And everyone celebrated the efforts being made by so many to help fund the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Five years later, I’m training for my seventh Team in Training event (one Olympic length triathlon, one 100 mile bike ride, and now six full marathons.) This will be my third Nike Women’s Marathon. I’m probably stronger and healthier than any time in my life (short of my kid-hood perhaps.) I’m 48. I’m six years older than my sister was when she died of blood cancer. I guess I owe it to her to make the best of it, and to continue the fight that she is no longer around to participate in.

I would like to raise at least $3000 this time around. What does this money fund? Why would you want to spend money on something you may have no connection to? Is it worth it?

Here are some stats:

THE POWER OF YOUR MONEY:

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

$500              allows 10 patients to log on to a web cast and hear the latest information in treatment for their disease.

$500               is the cost of a CT scan.

$200               provides a Family Support Group Program for one year for a patient and their family.

$150               allows 5 patients to make a First Connection with a trained peer volunteer.

$150               provides a blood cancer patient with financial assistance for one year.

$100               provides 3 patients access to an information teleconference.

$75                 is the average cost of tissue typing to become a bone marrow donor.

$40                 is the cost of sending a comprehensive packet of information for children with cancer.

$35                 pays for transportation expenses for a patient living in Northern California’s most rural areas to treatment at a comprehensive cancer center.

$25                 covers a single prescription co-payment.

$5                   is the cost of sending a newly diagnosed patient information about support and their disease.

And here’s the really cool stuff….did you know this?!

Targeted therapy RESEARCH
Discovering the molecular abnormalities that cause particular types of blood cancer has been useful in diagnosis and risk stratification, and as foci for new “targeted drug” development. LLS-funded investigators have helped advance molecularly targeted treatments that can selectively kill blood cancer cells versus normal cells. Many of these new treatments benefit not only blood cancer patients, but also patients with other diseases. For example:

Ø  Gleevec® was developed and FDA-approved for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), including children. It is now also approved for the treatment of patients with Philadelphia chromosome positive cases of acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL), and for patients with a rare form of stomach cancer. Gleevec is being tested for patients with other cancers, including breast, nerve, brain, prostate, lung, thyroid and ovarian cancer, as well as mesothelioma and melanoma. Related, even more potent drugs, Sprycel® and Tasigna®, have now been approved for patients who do not benefit from Gleevec and are also being tested against a wide range of cancers.

Ø  Rituxan® was the first FDA-approved, anti-cancer antibody drug, developed for patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), including diffuse large B-cell and follicular B-cell lymphoma. Rituxan is now used to treat patients with many forms of lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), ALL and myeloma. It is also approved for treating patients with severe rheumatoid arthritis, and being studied as a treatment for other types of autoimmune diseases and cancers, and for chronic graft-versus-host disease, a serious long-term complication of bone marrow / stem cell transplantation.

Ø  Velcade®, Thalidomid® and Revlimid® were developed and FDA-approved for patients with myeloma and are also helping patients with some forms of Hodgkin and NHL. One or more of these drugs are now being tested for patients with CLL, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and ALL, myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), colorectal, head-and-neck, kidney, thyroid, liver, lung, pancreatic and prostate cancers.

Ø  Dacogen® and Vidaza® are revolutionary new drugs that target small chemical, “epigenetic” additions on cancer-associated genes. These drugs are approved for MDS patients, can be safely used even in the frailest patients, and are also being developed for patients with ALL, AML, CML, CLL, and NHL, as well as for patients with kidney, colorectal, thyroid, head and neck, lung, prostate and ovarian cancers, other advanced solid tumors  and melanoma.

So you are not just helping blood cancer patients and researchers. You might be helping any number of patients with any number of diseases by funding ground breaking research. It might be one of your own relatives that you are helping. It might be yourself. It might be someone you don’t even know.

So help out. Get off the couch. Make a donation. Get involved. Do it because you have a personal connection. Do it before you have a personal connection. Become an athlete. I did.

If you would like to help Stephanie meet her goal or give to a great cause, please go to her Team in Training website and consider donating. No donation is too small. 

Additionally, if you were touched by her story, please consider sharing this post with your friends and/or family. Thank you all so much!

Rock 'n' Rolling in San Diego

I have done several endurance events, three mini-marathons to be exact, over the past three years. The first event I had completed was done with a team called Team in Training (TNT). I have posted about what the team does in a previous post that you can find here.

This year I decided to participate in the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Marathon. Yes, you read that right. Marathon. Not a Half or Mini Marathon but a Marathon!  Y'all must be thinking I'm crazy, and you would be right. This is the craziest thing I have attempted. I mean, who in their right mind would want to run 26.2 miles? Um, I guess this girl. Because I am clearly out of my mind.

The night before our endurance event, TNT hosts an insperational pasta party so the participants and their family/guests can load up on carbs and insperation for race day. I have included some pictures from our way to the pasta party as well as a video of what it like going into one, and of course pictures from the race (well, what I could get before my silly camera died!). 

Elise and Sydney

Dan and Erika

Us girls up early and ready to go!

The Fort Wayne Team

Waiting in our corral ready to start the 26.2 mile adventure! I don't even think you can see the start line in this picture!

The sun joined us in the morning. It was welcomed so we could warm up!

We were running this race in honor of our beloved Ed. We wrote his name on our hands to keep us motivated when our bodies were tired and we just wanted to quit and to remind us of the reason we were out there : to kick blood cancer in the butt!

We met this guy on the course. He saw our hands and decided to dedicate his pectorals to our friends Ed and Greg. 

He also dedicated his scapulas to the two children that we know that are battling blood cancer. His girlfriend, Brittany,  is the reason he was running. She was in remission when we met him. AND, if you dare to look closely, he was a bit on the crazy side. He had PINNED his number to his back! OUCH!

Almost time to Rock 'n' Roll!

Random picture snapped along the course.

I thought this was really pretty. If you look closely you can see that there is an organ filling the arch of this building.

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System

The outside of the San Diego Padres stadium, major league baseball that calls up from my hometowns minor league : Fort Wayne Tin Caps.

The inside of their stadium.

Yes, you are seeing clearly. We are running on a HIGHWAY. I would like to know who had this bright idea!

Yay! We made it to mile 10! Only 16.2 left to go!

I may not look like it because I'm upright and have somewhat of a smile on my face, but I'm about to die here. This was taken somewhere around mile 22-24 on the brutal island with no shade. Once again, who had this bright idea?

Oh, thank God! The finish line at 7:10:35!! I sprinted to the end, from about a few hundred feet back. But I did manage to run it in from the 25 mile marker with the help of our wonderful coaches on the course!

Proud and happy to be DONE!

All of us girls together! Dan is way fast for us, he finished like 3 hours before we did. Ya, he rocks.

While I was running in, I was looking along the sidelines for my friends that live in Cali that said they were going to come see me. I didn't see them and I got a little sad. I thought maybe they had left because I was taking so long and she had three children with her. After taking the above picture, you go around a corner into the parking lot where they had tents set up for you to refuel on food and fluids. I could barely walk (I did just complete 26.2 miles) around the corner but the minute I saw my friends sitting behind the fence waiting for me, I ran. I don't know where that came from but it was in me. It made my day to see them and I finally broke down in tears. I was elated. I think it just took me a while for it to all sink in. I did it. I really completed a marathon. Granted, I didn't run the whole thing nor get the time I was shooting for, but it was more important for me to stay with my friends and make some memories. And boy did we make some memories along our sunshiny, 7+ hour, 26.2 mile day. I may not have been able to say this at the time, but I loved every minute of it. All the pain, laughs, and tears. Not only did I complete the event, but I did it for Ed, Greg, Gavin, Saige, and everyone else battling blood cancer and for those that have lost their battles.

Team in Training

I have been a participant with Team in Training since January 2009. Around new years time I decided that I wanted to train for a mini-marathon to help motivate me to get into shape. Shortly into the new year I received some information in the mail about Team in Training. I attended one of their "recruiting" meetings to see what it was all about and I decided to give it a shot.

Team in Training (TNT) began in 1988 when a man from NY formed a team that raised funds and trained to run the New York City Marathon. The team of 38 runners raised a total of $322,000 (To read more of the back story click here.) TNT has trained over a half a million runners, walkers, triathletes, cyclists and hikers that have come together to raise over $1.2 billion for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Over the course of the past three seasons I have met some wonderful people from my teammates, honored heroes (those that are a survivor of a blood cancer or those that are currently undergoing treatment) and their families, to the office staff. Some of these people have become my closest friends.

Before every race TNT puts together a Pasta Inspiration Dinner where ALL TNT participants and their families come together to listen to the touching stories of those who lives have been forever changed because of blood cancers. I have come to realize that cancer does not discriminate; however, the cancer has an extreme battle to overcome as I am always amazed of how little kids and even adults can face such a horrible thing but face it with a smile on their face. This dinner is a reminder of what we set out to do and its what keeps us going at mile 12 when all we want to do is stop. I always remind myself that that little kid doesn't have a choice to not get treatment, doesn't have a choice to not have cancer, so I don't have a choice to stop running. I fight for families so they don't have to fight - so they can focus on the care and supporting their loved ones.

I have been blessed to be able to participate with such a team while I give back to those who need it the most and I have no plans to stop pounding the pavement to train for events until a cure is found.

If you are interested in being involved with TNT, please visit their website to see what you can do to help!