Thursday, June 25, 2009
Colleen's Fundraising Page
http://pages.teamintraining.org/ntx/anchor09/cnay
Racing to Save Lives
Welcome to my Team In Training page!
I'm training to participate in an endurance event as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. I will be participating in the Mayor's Half Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska on June 20th, 2009. If you know my athletic abilities, you know this is going to be one of the biggest challenges I've taken on (possibly ever)! I've decided to take this challenge on for several reasons. First, I've always wanted to run a half marathon and it is actually #9 on my list of thirty things I'm doing before I turn thirty (May 2012!!). Second, and most importantly, to raise awareness and funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives.
I've been very blessed in my life to not know any relatives or friends to pass away from Leukemia or other blood cancers. There are several special people that I was not fortunate enough to meet as they went before our paths crossed. Ryan Gibson was a fellow SMU graduate and was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia the summer after his freshman year. His incredible friends have set up a non-profit, Ryan Gibson Foundation, to help find a cure for leukemia. My grandfather, Leon, also passed away from Leukemia. My dad remembers the doctors always trying to comfort him by talking about Danny Thompson, of the Texas Rangers, having the same type of Leukemia (Chronic Granulocytic Leukemia) and playing professional baseball for another four years after being diagnosed!
This event is in honor of every single person 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!
Please click the "Donate Now" button to your right and make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance LLS's mission. Don't forget to use company matching if it is available.
I hope you will visit my web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress (as there will be LOTS of progress on my end!!!). Thanks for your support!
xoxo Colleen
There are also several special friends and friends of friends to acknowledge...Rebecca Lawson and Lauren Cavender are amazing survivors! Ross Hugon Hemphill was a friend's fun grandpa to have around in Dallas! Brennan Garvey fought a long battle and always had a smile on his face!
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Updates:
1/26/09:
I didn't think there would be any updates until the actual half marathon training starts (Feb 7)......but there are! This may come as a surprise to some of you! I've been doing spin class a few times a week for the past few months and it has really helped my endurance. I did a 3 mile run/walk on Saturday evening. It was good, the first half was running and the second was mostly walking. I was exhausted! Sunday afternoon, I went out and ran for FORTY FIVE MINUTES straight (other than stopping at a few stop lights) and did right at 4 miles. I have never run that long without stopping, not even when we had to run 6 miles at Lunken Airport for field hockey in high school!! It felt amazing to run the entire time and I even did a few hills! I woke up at 5:35 today (Monday) and ran a mile and walked a mile. The treadmill certainly isn't as fun as being outside. Let me know if you have any morning running buddy suggestions for me that live in Uptown.
2/1/09:
Last week was another "warm up" week for the official training that starts this week. Due to our Dallas ice storm on Tuesday, I decided it was safest to stay in and use the elliptical and do some weights! I don't need to add any extra obstacles to my running like black ice!! I traveled to Detroit and Columbus to see the Dallas Stars play from Wednesday to Sunday and managed to get in an 18 minute run and 25 minute bike ride in the gym.......Detroit was another place to avoid going outside! The 7 degree weather combined with the fact that it was downtown Detroit kept me in the hotel gym! What an incredible trip...we beat Detroit at Joe Louis Arena (which is a huge feat) and Columbus 7-3. We're now tied for 5th place! Despite coming home sick, I managed to feel better for a couple hours Sunday and got in a 40 minute run. I ran down and around Victory Park and spent about 10 minutes doing "hills" in the 6 story parking garage.
2/8/09:
This was the first official week of training! I managed to get in a 28 minute run on Monday night between work and Spanish class...probably was not a good idea seeing that I ended up at the doctor's office Tuesday and found out I had strep! I took the rest of the week off and feel like a new person after lots of medicine! We had our first group training session Saturday at 7am and it was great. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. Joe, our Dallas run coach, greeted me by name when I walked up == he has a great memory! Team in Training really is an incredible organization. We were all put in smaller groups determined by our mile time and each group has a mentor. We ran 2 miles and had a big breakfast afterwards! A few hours (and cups of coffee) later, I was itching to run a little more...so I ran another 55 minutes and did my normal route to Victory Park. I ran a few laps around AAC as well as the 6 level garage 3 times. The parking garage is the closest thing to hills that we have in Dallas. Today (Sunday), I did an easy 15minute run and long walk. I ran 12.7 miles this week!!!!
2/15/09:
The second week of training was even better than the first! I ran on the treadmill Monday (1.5miles) and Tuesday (2miles) and finally got in an outdoor run Thursday. I did the Victory Park loop with my new Thursday morning running partner (3 miles) and loved being outside early enough in the morning that we didn't have to share the road with anyone. It's pretty cool to see all of the buildings downtown still dark and our neighborhood waking up. Saturday was by far the highlight of my Team In Training experience so far. We met at White Rock Lake right before 7am and heard a special story about why one of the TNT ladies joined the organization. She lost her father when he was 54 and she ended up being a donor match several years later for another man who was 54 years old...and he is living life to the fullest today. We ran 4 miles around White Rock in our small group. I love my group! We talked the entire way and are all having fun getting to know eachother. After our run, we had an Honored Hero breakfast at Ozona's (in the same room as our SMU graduation party...). Honored Heroes are the people that have/have had some type of blood disease and they are the people that we run for each day. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. Nine special people (ten including the mom of a cute little 3 year old) stood up on the stage and told us their stories....from the surprise of one young lady that is a nurse in an oncology unit finding a lump herself right after she had her first child to the man that just recently found out his cancer had spread to his brain. These heroes have an incredible amount of courage to stand up and tell us exactly what they are going through each and every day because of their experience with Leukemia. Hearing each person speak made me realize how fortunate I really am and that my goal over the next few months is to raise as much money as possible to help find a cure for Leukemia and other blood disesases. 140,000 people are diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma every year and every 10 minutes, another person dies from these diseases. Saturday's experience motivated me to get up this morning and run 3 miles! I ran 13.5 miles this week and have a total of 26.2 miles under my belt. That's an entire marathon and it's only taken me 2 weeks to run it :). Hopefully it won't take me an entire week to run my half-marathon in June!!!! In all seriousness, thank you so much for any contribution that you are able to make to Team in Training/Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
2/22/09:
What a week! Lots of miles and even more fundraising! Thank you to each one of you for your continued support, your words of encouragement keep me running and your donations are helping us find cures for all of the blood diseases out there. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all treadmill days (1.5, 2 and 1mile days respectively). I still haven't found a way to keep the treadmill from being boring. I have found a new news channel, HLN, and it at least keeps my mind off the monotonous run! Thursday was great...we did the usual outdoor run around Victory Park. Saturday was the group run at White Rock Lake. Callie, one of our Honored Heroes, told us her story about being diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma while she was in grad school. Due to all of the research and medicine that has been developed over the years, she has been very fortunate and had a relatively quick path to recovery. Sadly though, one of her classmates was just diagnosed with AML and will have a longer and harder time with chemo and radiation. Callie is a member of Team in Training as well and out there raising funds for her friend and others that are still working through their cancers. I know it is my responsibility to help out in any way that I can, and that is why I've become so passionate about helping find a cure for these blood diseases. After hearing Callie's motivating speech, I ran a record SIX MILES!!!!! I wouldn't call the long run easy, but it wasn't too bad! It was definitely a cake walk compared to what our Honored Heroes have gone through. Almost 900,000 Americans are living with leukemia, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, myeloma and myelodysplastic syndromes. That's a pretty big motivator to help find a cure if you ask me! I ran down to Victory Park today and up Katy Trail for 3.5mile run and enjoyed a 4 mile walk back home. 17miles this week and a total of 43.2miles since I've started training!!
3/1/09:
It was another great week of training and fundraising!! The training went pretty well during the week, I ran 1.5miles Monday inside, 3.7miles Wednesday down to Victory Park and up Katy Trail and another 1.5miles Friday on the treadmill. Lots of the TNTers did the Cowtown 5k or 10k on Saturday morning in Fort Worth, but I had to be at a Chi Omega Christmas Market (ask me about it if you want to know what COCM is!) meeting early in the morning, so a few of us met at White Rock Lake to do a 6mile run..........well, let me tell you, 7:30am this past Saturday was close to the coldest and windiest day I have ever experienced in Dallas. We ended up doing 4miles, which felt like a huge accomplishment given the fact that it was about 26 or 28 degrees out and so windy! Sunday, Jenny and I ran/walked on Katy Trail and enjoyed the cold but sunny morning. Training in the cold and extreme wind isn't ideal, but it really isn't bad compared to what our honored heroes and all of the other people with leukemia and blood cancers have to go through. About 33 percent of cancers in children ages 0-14 years are leukemia. The most common form of leukemia among children under 19 years of age is Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). It is hard to think about all those cute little kiddos out there that can't experience playing on the swings or being on the soccer team because they have to go through radiation and other treatments. At my COCM meeting Saturday, we watched a video from the Heroes for Children agency (www.heroesforchildren.org). There was a cute little boy that was battling leukemia and they were taping him at the same playroom at Children's Medical Center that Katherine and I visit every Tuesday night. Every time I see that video it brings tears to my eyes! There are so many special people that are touched by blood cancers, whether it be the patient, their family or friends and it's in our power to help them out. I can't say it enough-thanks so much for all of your support!! 11.7miles this week and a total of 54.9miles since we started this journey! That's driving out to my Aunt Mary's house and back!
3/15/09:
We got some very sad news last week..our Honored Hero that came to the breakfast last month who found out his cancer had spread to his brain just passed away last week. It's so sad, for every amazing story about someone recovering, there is another person who loses their hard fought battle to blood cancer. In the United States, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is the fifth most common cancer among males and females. The age-adjusted incidence of NHL rose by nearly 79 percent from 1975-2005. Age-specific incidence rates of NHL are 2.9/100,000 at ages 20-24 for males and 1.9/100,000 for females. By ages 60-64, they are 53.9/100,000 for males and 39.2/100,000 for females. Those numbers are way too high. The past two weeks of training ended with a running milestone for me yesterday! Monday (3/2), I ran the standard 2miles on the treadmill, Tuesday was a 3mile outdoor run with 2 sprints in the middle, Thursday we ran 4miles up to West Village and on Katy Trail. Last weekend I had a reunion trip with some friends from LA, London and Atlanta in Las Vegas...so I didn't get in my normal weekend runs! This past Monday, I did the treadmill 2miles and Tuesday, four of us met and ran down to Victory Park and did some sprints in the parking lot of AAC. I started getting a cold Tuesday afternoon and had to sit the next few days out. I went to spin class Friday night to get back in the swing of cardio workouts. I met my TNT friends bright (or dark) and early at White Rock Lake on Saturday morning. Our schedule called for a 7mile run for the half marathon training. Running with several people training for a full marathon incentivized me to run their scheduled distance of 9miles.......that means I ran around the ENTIRE White Rock Lake! Can you believe it?! It was an awesome run!!! It's so much easier to run with people that you can chat with the whole time-sure makes the time fly by! 23.5miles over the last two weeks and 78.4miles total since starting Team in Training!
4/5/09:
The past few weeks have flown by, but I'm back to give you an update!! In the past three weeks, I met and passed my minimum fundraising goal! I received my first donation on January 14th and it only took two and a half months to raise over $4500! Please keep the donations coming, the ultimate goal of this adventure is to give as much money as possible to the Leukemia and Lymphona Society so that they can help find a cure for blood diseases. I am committing to raise $5,250 for LLS. The running is going well, the past three Saturdays at White Rock Lake we ran 6 miles with hills, 8 miles and just did 9 miles with hills yesterday (ironically, the hill yesterday was called "Loving Hill" but I was not loving it......). The 8 mile run last week was pretty strenuous===it was 28 degrees and extremely windy, but it was manageable! It's exciting to see that racing season has started in Dallas...there were over 4000 bikers doing the Tour Dallas and lots of runners doing a race around the lake yesterday. As with any type of cancer or disease, early detection is very important, so please read below for some of the common symptoms. There are four main types of leukemia: Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia; Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia; Acute Myelogenous Leukemia; and Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. They differ for each type of leukemia, but common leukemia symptoms include: Fever or chills; Persistent fatigue, weakness; Frequent infections; Loss of appetite or weight; Swollen lymph nodes, enlarged liver or spleen; Easy bleeding or bruising; Shortness of breath when you're physically active, as while climbing steps; Tiny red spots in your skin (petechiae); Excessive sweating, especially at night; Bone pain or tenderness. The severity of signs and symptoms depends on the number of abnormal blood cells and where they collect. You may overlook early symptoms of leukemia because they may resemble symptoms of the flu and other common illnesses. In the past three weeks, I've run 42miles and a grand total of 120.4miles since starting in late January! Thank you to everyone for helping my fundraising efforts for LLS!!
4/9/09:
Pretty amazing what Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has accomplished over the years. This really shows how your donations are truly changing the lives of people just like you and me that have the unfortunate luck of being diagnosed with a blood cancer.
Read below for LLS successes:
Since its founding in 1949, LLS has invested more than $600 million in blood cancer research. We fund more blood cancer research than all other voluntary agencies combined. An LLS-funded researcher developed Gleevec, a pill for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML). Now, more than 95 percent of newly diagnosed CML patients survive more than five years with a good quality of life. LLS was also instrumental in the development of Velcade, the first new treatment in more than a decade to be approved for patients with multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma. While much has been achieved, there is so much more that can and needs to be done. Thank you again. Your support is helping blood cancer patients live longer, better lives.
6/18/09:
The Anchorage weekend adventure begins…I met six North Texas teammates at the airport for the team flight and you could feel the excitement!! There were other TNTers from Michigan, Louisiana and other states travelling with us as well. We arrived in Anchorage and met up with my parents at the airport and headed to the hotel where we were greeted by tons of other TNT runners. Part of the North Texas Anchorage crew consisted of JR (my Saturday training/running buddy), Megan (TNT/LLS staff coordinator), Maile (TNT coach), Stan (8x Anchorage marathoner!), Cliff & Abby (twins) and Stephanie (our very own TNT Triple Crowner!). We headed over to Humpy’s for dinner and some local brewed Alaskan beer and really started to get to know each other. Abby is on her second Team in Training event and did the half marathon in honor of her twin brother, Cliff, who is one of our Honored Heroes that we met at the Honored Hero breakfast back in February. Cliff received a bone marrow transplant and is now the coordinator of the National Marrow Donor Program at Baylor. It’s amazing how the trials in life can have so many positive outcomes, think of all of the lives that he is now helping save in his position. BE THE MATCH Registry at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas finds potential donors of stem cell and marrow. Donors at BE THE MATCH Registry at Baylor Dallas have given the "gift of life" to more than 300 patients in need through 247 bone marrow collections and 53 peripheral blood stem cell collections. Since its inception, Baylor's Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) program has facilitated 588 unrelated adult stem cell transplants for Baylor Dallas patients. Stephanie has done three different TNT events – a triathlon, century ride and now the half marathon! She was one of three of the 400 or so TNT people in Anchorage that became Triple Crowners! Shortly after doing his first marathon with TNT in Anchorage eight years ago, Stan found out he had Leukemia..and he just did his eighth marathon in Anchorage!! Clearly the Anchorage run has a special place in his heart. Incredible Megan has raised over $20,000 for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! She has done all of this in honor of her father, who she lost to cancer when she was just 8 years old. No one should ever lose their dad at such a young age, but you can tell she is grateful for the seven extra years she had with her dad because of the chemotherapy that he received. Leukemia and Lymphoma Society funded the research that discovered chemotherapy. Since its inception in 1949, LLS has invested more than $600 million in research to find the causes and cures for blood cancers. The research budget in fiscal year 2008 was $71.4 million, including funding for 129 new grants to researchers in academic institutions and $4 million in contracts through the LLS Therapy Acceleration Program. As of June 2008, LLS was supporting 388 research projects and 9 research contracts in the U.S., Canada, and 14 other countries, with a total commitment of $274 million, including:
- Leukemia research: approximately $136 million
- Lymphoma research: approximately $109 million
- Myeloma research: approximately $30 million
We figured out why they used to run the Mayor’s Marathon at Midnight back in the day….it was completely light out when we headed back to the hotel around 11pm! Friday we went to the marathon Expo to pick up our running bibs. We toured around Anchorage and met a lady from San Antonio at the coffee shop who mentioned she would be speaking at our Honored Hero Pasta Dinner that night. We met up with the group and had reindeer sausage before taking a trolley around town—we saw parts of the marathon course, the “airport” on a lake with tons of seaplanes, a moose fenced in in someone’s side yard and a few other sights you wouldn’t see here in Dallas!
Our group headed over to the brand new Anchorage convention center for the Pasta Dinner and it was quite the experience. All of our TNT staff, coaches and mentors had lined the hall and made us feel like celebrities with all of their cheering, cowbells ringing and dancing! The Anchorage Mayor spoke about how TNT had raised over $75mm for LLS since they started participating in the Mayor’s Marathon. A slideshow highlighted each chapter’s Honored Heroes – our very own Cliff showed up as well as a friend of mine, Rebecca Lawson! She’s been cancer free for five years and just moved with TNT to work in the Houston office. They had different groups of people stand up: first time marathoners, second, third, etc; the highest fundraisers ($30,000+!); triple crowners and all of the survivors that were running. It was amazing to see all of the survivors that were going to be running the next morning. Next up to the podium was the lady we met at the coffee shop – what a moving story. She found out she had breast cancer in 2005 and went through a double mastectomy and had a full recovery at the age of 38. Two years to the week of her diagnosis, she felt a lump in her throat and thought the breast cancer was back, but it wasn’t. It was leukemia. How could someone so young have two terrible cancers, and so close together?? She talked about the radiation she went through – they had to build a metal structure around her head and nail it to the table so she couldn’t move even a millimeter during the procedure as it would have been disastrous for the laser to hit the wrong spot. She held her breath the entire fifteen minutes of the procedures out of fear of moving. Early on in her Leukemia treatment, she was at a race cheering her husband on when she noticed a bunch of people wearing purple and holding TNT & LLS signs. She met them and found out about the purpose of TNT and knew that she wanted to join all of the encouraging people once she recovered. Well, she did that just a short four months after her recovery and did a triathlon with Team in Training. Talk about a strong and incredible person!!!
We headed back to the hotel to decorate our jerseys – we wore ribbons on the back of our jerseys for our heroes – mine for my granddad and a few other folks that have had blood cancers. I also wore the names of two special people that lost their battles-Rooster, Megan’s father and Brennan, Samantha’s best friend from growing up. I woke up early race day to the surprise of 14 encouraging cards from friends from home!! Quite a motivating way to start off the day! We made it to the start line pretty early and all huddled together to stay warm and danced around in anticipation of the run! The announcers called for the runners to move up front and Stephanie and Abby told me to get up there and as I walked off, Abby said “remember, you’re doing this for Cliff and Stan”. Despite seeing the course elevation map –hills the entire way-I knew I could do it because what she just said – nothing I’ve encountered in life has been as challenging as cancer and surely running 13 miles was survivable!! The starting gun went off and my feet started moving on their own (luckily)! Here’s what I remember from the half marathon: searching the supporters on the sides to find my parents – I saw Cliff and my Dad right off the bat! At miles 1, 2 and 3, I kept telling myself that I was already one third of the way through the race and at miles 4, 5 and 6, I told myself I was halfway through (obviously I had much farther to go but it was encouraging to think I was “almost” done!). The water stop at mile 4 was entertaining – the volunteers had dog outfits on and were playing “Who Let The Dogs Out?”. We ran through Earthquake Park (the land dropped 10-30 feet in the 1964 quake), along the Tony Knowles Coastal Highway and through the airport where two huge planes took off about 100 yards away. We made it to the woods and had a nice change of scenery. There were muddy stretches, parts where you had to run single file and trees limbs that tried to jump out at me! If you know me well, you will find this surprising – I only said about 6 or 8 words the entire two hours and seventeen minutes! I like to talk with my running friends when we go out, but I didn’t have anyone to talk to other than to say thanks to the awesome supporters that kept saying “Go Colleen!!”, “You can do it Colleen!!”. The first ten miles, I felt like I was constantly being passed – but it didn’t bother me that 75 year old men were running faster than me…hahah. Around that time, I started getting pretty worn out but knew I had to keep running because I was on track to run every single step of the 13.1 miles and I wasn’t about to quit. All I could think of was that I was running for Cliff and Stan like Abby said earlier. I got so excited when I saw that 12 mile marker – the end was near! About half a mile later, we met up with the full marathoners and ran up the very steep hill and I knew the finish line was at the top of the hill. Well, it wasn’t! Some sweet lady on the side line said “Go Colleen! Only a third of a mile left!”, I knew she had to be wrong!! The high school track came into sight and I started looking for my parents and there they were – right at the finish line cheering me on!! After smiling for the camera (of course I’m not going to miss a photo opportunity!), I sprinted through and finished the half marathon. Your support and encouragement made this possible. After spending the weekend with all of these strong survivors and supporters of LLS, I’ve seen the impact firsthand and the real importance behind all of the 5am runs, the fundraising and dedication of LLS to find cures for blood diseases. Team in Training is such an incredible organization. You should do it too!!! If you do, I promise to be your first donor!!
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Some may say my athleticism peaked in 3rd grade t-ball..but I don't think so!
http://pages.teamintraining.org/ntx/anchor09/cnay
Racing to Save Lives
Welcome to my Team In Training page!
I'm training to participate in an endurance event as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. I will be participating in the Mayor's Half Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska on June 20th, 2009. If you know my athletic abilities, you know this is going to be one of the biggest challenges I've taken on (possibly ever)! I've decided to take this challenge on for several reasons. First, I've always wanted to run a half marathon and it is actually #9 on my list of thirty things I'm doing before I turn thirty (May 2012!!). Second, and most importantly, to raise awareness and funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives.
I've been very blessed in my life to not know any relatives or friends to pass away from Leukemia or other blood cancers. There are several special people that I was not fortunate enough to meet as they went before our paths crossed. Ryan Gibson was a fellow SMU graduate and was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia the summer after his freshman year. His incredible friends have set up a non-profit, Ryan Gibson Foundation, to help find a cure for leukemia. My grandfather, Leon, also passed away from Leukemia. My dad remembers the doctors always trying to comfort him by talking about Danny Thompson, of the Texas Rangers, having the same type of Leukemia (Chronic Granulocytic Leukemia) and playing professional baseball for another four years after being diagnosed!
This event is in honor of every single person 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!
Please click the "Donate Now" button to your right and make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance LLS's mission. Don't forget to use company matching if it is available.
I hope you will visit my web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress (as there will be LOTS of progress on my end!!!). Thanks for your support!
xoxo Colleen
There are also several special friends and friends of friends to acknowledge...Rebecca Lawson and Lauren Cavender are amazing survivors! Ross Hugon Hemphill was a friend's fun grandpa to have around in Dallas! Brennan Garvey fought a long battle and always had a smile on his face!
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Updates:
1/26/09:
I didn't think there would be any updates until the actual half marathon training starts (Feb 7)......but there are! This may come as a surprise to some of you! I've been doing spin class a few times a week for the past few months and it has really helped my endurance. I did a 3 mile run/walk on Saturday evening. It was good, the first half was running and the second was mostly walking. I was exhausted! Sunday afternoon, I went out and ran for FORTY FIVE MINUTES straight (other than stopping at a few stop lights) and did right at 4 miles. I have never run that long without stopping, not even when we had to run 6 miles at Lunken Airport for field hockey in high school!! It felt amazing to run the entire time and I even did a few hills! I woke up at 5:35 today (Monday) and ran a mile and walked a mile. The treadmill certainly isn't as fun as being outside. Let me know if you have any morning running buddy suggestions for me that live in Uptown.
2/1/09:
Last week was another "warm up" week for the official training that starts this week. Due to our Dallas ice storm on Tuesday, I decided it was safest to stay in and use the elliptical and do some weights! I don't need to add any extra obstacles to my running like black ice!! I traveled to Detroit and Columbus to see the Dallas Stars play from Wednesday to Sunday and managed to get in an 18 minute run and 25 minute bike ride in the gym.......Detroit was another place to avoid going outside! The 7 degree weather combined with the fact that it was downtown Detroit kept me in the hotel gym! What an incredible trip...we beat Detroit at Joe Louis Arena (which is a huge feat) and Columbus 7-3. We're now tied for 5th place! Despite coming home sick, I managed to feel better for a couple hours Sunday and got in a 40 minute run. I ran down and around Victory Park and spent about 10 minutes doing "hills" in the 6 story parking garage.
2/8/09:
This was the first official week of training! I managed to get in a 28 minute run on Monday night between work and Spanish class...probably was not a good idea seeing that I ended up at the doctor's office Tuesday and found out I had strep! I took the rest of the week off and feel like a new person after lots of medicine! We had our first group training session Saturday at 7am and it was great. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. Joe, our Dallas run coach, greeted me by name when I walked up == he has a great memory! Team in Training really is an incredible organization. We were all put in smaller groups determined by our mile time and each group has a mentor. We ran 2 miles and had a big breakfast afterwards! A few hours (and cups of coffee) later, I was itching to run a little more...so I ran another 55 minutes and did my normal route to Victory Park. I ran a few laps around AAC as well as the 6 level garage 3 times. The parking garage is the closest thing to hills that we have in Dallas. Today (Sunday), I did an easy 15minute run and long walk. I ran 12.7 miles this week!!!!
2/15/09:
The second week of training was even better than the first! I ran on the treadmill Monday (1.5miles) and Tuesday (2miles) and finally got in an outdoor run Thursday. I did the Victory Park loop with my new Thursday morning running partner (3 miles) and loved being outside early enough in the morning that we didn't have to share the road with anyone. It's pretty cool to see all of the buildings downtown still dark and our neighborhood waking up. Saturday was by far the highlight of my Team In Training experience so far. We met at White Rock Lake right before 7am and heard a special story about why one of the TNT ladies joined the organization. She lost her father when he was 54 and she ended up being a donor match several years later for another man who was 54 years old...and he is living life to the fullest today. We ran 4 miles around White Rock in our small group. I love my group! We talked the entire way and are all having fun getting to know eachother. After our run, we had an Honored Hero breakfast at Ozona's (in the same room as our SMU graduation party...). Honored Heroes are the people that have/have had some type of blood disease and they are the people that we run for each day. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. Nine special people (ten including the mom of a cute little 3 year old) stood up on the stage and told us their stories....from the surprise of one young lady that is a nurse in an oncology unit finding a lump herself right after she had her first child to the man that just recently found out his cancer had spread to his brain. These heroes have an incredible amount of courage to stand up and tell us exactly what they are going through each and every day because of their experience with Leukemia. Hearing each person speak made me realize how fortunate I really am and that my goal over the next few months is to raise as much money as possible to help find a cure for Leukemia and other blood disesases. 140,000 people are diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma every year and every 10 minutes, another person dies from these diseases. Saturday's experience motivated me to get up this morning and run 3 miles! I ran 13.5 miles this week and have a total of 26.2 miles under my belt. That's an entire marathon and it's only taken me 2 weeks to run it :). Hopefully it won't take me an entire week to run my half-marathon in June!!!! In all seriousness, thank you so much for any contribution that you are able to make to Team in Training/Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
2/22/09:
What a week! Lots of miles and even more fundraising! Thank you to each one of you for your continued support, your words of encouragement keep me running and your donations are helping us find cures for all of the blood diseases out there. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all treadmill days (1.5, 2 and 1mile days respectively). I still haven't found a way to keep the treadmill from being boring. I have found a new news channel, HLN, and it at least keeps my mind off the monotonous run! Thursday was great...we did the usual outdoor run around Victory Park. Saturday was the group run at White Rock Lake. Callie, one of our Honored Heroes, told us her story about being diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma while she was in grad school. Due to all of the research and medicine that has been developed over the years, she has been very fortunate and had a relatively quick path to recovery. Sadly though, one of her classmates was just diagnosed with AML and will have a longer and harder time with chemo and radiation. Callie is a member of Team in Training as well and out there raising funds for her friend and others that are still working through their cancers. I know it is my responsibility to help out in any way that I can, and that is why I've become so passionate about helping find a cure for these blood diseases. After hearing Callie's motivating speech, I ran a record SIX MILES!!!!! I wouldn't call the long run easy, but it wasn't too bad! It was definitely a cake walk compared to what our Honored Heroes have gone through. Almost 900,000 Americans are living with leukemia, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, myeloma and myelodysplastic syndromes. That's a pretty big motivator to help find a cure if you ask me! I ran down to Victory Park today and up Katy Trail for 3.5mile run and enjoyed a 4 mile walk back home. 17miles this week and a total of 43.2miles since I've started training!!
3/1/09:
It was another great week of training and fundraising!! The training went pretty well during the week, I ran 1.5miles Monday inside, 3.7miles Wednesday down to Victory Park and up Katy Trail and another 1.5miles Friday on the treadmill. Lots of the TNTers did the Cowtown 5k or 10k on Saturday morning in Fort Worth, but I had to be at a Chi Omega Christmas Market (ask me about it if you want to know what COCM is!) meeting early in the morning, so a few of us met at White Rock Lake to do a 6mile run..........well, let me tell you, 7:30am this past Saturday was close to the coldest and windiest day I have ever experienced in Dallas. We ended up doing 4miles, which felt like a huge accomplishment given the fact that it was about 26 or 28 degrees out and so windy! Sunday, Jenny and I ran/walked on Katy Trail and enjoyed the cold but sunny morning. Training in the cold and extreme wind isn't ideal, but it really isn't bad compared to what our honored heroes and all of the other people with leukemia and blood cancers have to go through. About 33 percent of cancers in children ages 0-14 years are leukemia. The most common form of leukemia among children under 19 years of age is Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). It is hard to think about all those cute little kiddos out there that can't experience playing on the swings or being on the soccer team because they have to go through radiation and other treatments. At my COCM meeting Saturday, we watched a video from the Heroes for Children agency (www.heroesforchildren.org). There was a cute little boy that was battling leukemia and they were taping him at the same playroom at Children's Medical Center that Katherine and I visit every Tuesday night. Every time I see that video it brings tears to my eyes! There are so many special people that are touched by blood cancers, whether it be the patient, their family or friends and it's in our power to help them out. I can't say it enough-thanks so much for all of your support!! 11.7miles this week and a total of 54.9miles since we started this journey! That's driving out to my Aunt Mary's house and back!
3/15/09:
We got some very sad news last week..our Honored Hero that came to the breakfast last month who found out his cancer had spread to his brain just passed away last week. It's so sad, for every amazing story about someone recovering, there is another person who loses their hard fought battle to blood cancer. In the United States, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is the fifth most common cancer among males and females. The age-adjusted incidence of NHL rose by nearly 79 percent from 1975-2005. Age-specific incidence rates of NHL are 2.9/100,000 at ages 20-24 for males and 1.9/100,000 for females. By ages 60-64, they are 53.9/100,000 for males and 39.2/100,000 for females. Those numbers are way too high. The past two weeks of training ended with a running milestone for me yesterday! Monday (3/2), I ran the standard 2miles on the treadmill, Tuesday was a 3mile outdoor run with 2 sprints in the middle, Thursday we ran 4miles up to West Village and on Katy Trail. Last weekend I had a reunion trip with some friends from LA, London and Atlanta in Las Vegas...so I didn't get in my normal weekend runs! This past Monday, I did the treadmill 2miles and Tuesday, four of us met and ran down to Victory Park and did some sprints in the parking lot of AAC. I started getting a cold Tuesday afternoon and had to sit the next few days out. I went to spin class Friday night to get back in the swing of cardio workouts. I met my TNT friends bright (or dark) and early at White Rock Lake on Saturday morning. Our schedule called for a 7mile run for the half marathon training. Running with several people training for a full marathon incentivized me to run their scheduled distance of 9miles.......that means I ran around the ENTIRE White Rock Lake! Can you believe it?! It was an awesome run!!! It's so much easier to run with people that you can chat with the whole time-sure makes the time fly by! 23.5miles over the last two weeks and 78.4miles total since starting Team in Training!
4/5/09:
The past few weeks have flown by, but I'm back to give you an update!! In the past three weeks, I met and passed my minimum fundraising goal! I received my first donation on January 14th and it only took two and a half months to raise over $4500! Please keep the donations coming, the ultimate goal of this adventure is to give as much money as possible to the Leukemia and Lymphona Society so that they can help find a cure for blood diseases. I am committing to raise $5,250 for LLS. The running is going well, the past three Saturdays at White Rock Lake we ran 6 miles with hills, 8 miles and just did 9 miles with hills yesterday (ironically, the hill yesterday was called "Loving Hill" but I was not loving it......). The 8 mile run last week was pretty strenuous===it was 28 degrees and extremely windy, but it was manageable! It's exciting to see that racing season has started in Dallas...there were over 4000 bikers doing the Tour Dallas and lots of runners doing a race around the lake yesterday. As with any type of cancer or disease, early detection is very important, so please read below for some of the common symptoms. There are four main types of leukemia: Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia; Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia; Acute Myelogenous Leukemia; and Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. They differ for each type of leukemia, but common leukemia symptoms include: Fever or chills; Persistent fatigue, weakness; Frequent infections; Loss of appetite or weight; Swollen lymph nodes, enlarged liver or spleen; Easy bleeding or bruising; Shortness of breath when you're physically active, as while climbing steps; Tiny red spots in your skin (petechiae); Excessive sweating, especially at night; Bone pain or tenderness. The severity of signs and symptoms depends on the number of abnormal blood cells and where they collect. You may overlook early symptoms of leukemia because they may resemble symptoms of the flu and other common illnesses. In the past three weeks, I've run 42miles and a grand total of 120.4miles since starting in late January! Thank you to everyone for helping my fundraising efforts for LLS!!
4/9/09:
Pretty amazing what Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has accomplished over the years. This really shows how your donations are truly changing the lives of people just like you and me that have the unfortunate luck of being diagnosed with a blood cancer.
Read below for LLS successes:
Since its founding in 1949, LLS has invested more than $600 million in blood cancer research. We fund more blood cancer research than all other voluntary agencies combined. An LLS-funded researcher developed Gleevec, a pill for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML). Now, more than 95 percent of newly diagnosed CML patients survive more than five years with a good quality of life. LLS was also instrumental in the development of Velcade, the first new treatment in more than a decade to be approved for patients with multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma. While much has been achieved, there is so much more that can and needs to be done. Thank you again. Your support is helping blood cancer patients live longer, better lives.
6/18/09:
The Anchorage weekend adventure begins…I met six North Texas teammates at the airport for the team flight and you could feel the excitement!! There were other TNTers from Michigan, Louisiana and other states travelling with us as well. We arrived in Anchorage and met up with my parents at the airport and headed to the hotel where we were greeted by tons of other TNT runners. Part of the North Texas Anchorage crew consisted of JR (my Saturday training/running buddy), Megan (TNT/LLS staff coordinator), Maile (TNT coach), Stan (8x Anchorage marathoner!), Cliff & Abby (twins) and Stephanie (our very own TNT Triple Crowner!). We headed over to Humpy’s for dinner and some local brewed Alaskan beer and really started to get to know each other. Abby is on her second Team in Training event and did the half marathon in honor of her twin brother, Cliff, who is one of our Honored Heroes that we met at the Honored Hero breakfast back in February. Cliff received a bone marrow transplant and is now the coordinator of the National Marrow Donor Program at Baylor. It’s amazing how the trials in life can have so many positive outcomes, think of all of the lives that he is now helping save in his position. BE THE MATCH Registry at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas finds potential donors of stem cell and marrow. Donors at BE THE MATCH Registry at Baylor Dallas have given the "gift of life" to more than 300 patients in need through 247 bone marrow collections and 53 peripheral blood stem cell collections. Since its inception, Baylor's Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) program has facilitated 588 unrelated adult stem cell transplants for Baylor Dallas patients. Stephanie has done three different TNT events – a triathlon, century ride and now the half marathon! She was one of three of the 400 or so TNT people in Anchorage that became Triple Crowners! Shortly after doing his first marathon with TNT in Anchorage eight years ago, Stan found out he had Leukemia..and he just did his eighth marathon in Anchorage!! Clearly the Anchorage run has a special place in his heart. Incredible Megan has raised over $20,000 for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! She has done all of this in honor of her father, who she lost to cancer when she was just 8 years old. No one should ever lose their dad at such a young age, but you can tell she is grateful for the seven extra years she had with her dad because of the chemotherapy that he received. Leukemia and Lymphoma Society funded the research that discovered chemotherapy. Since its inception in 1949, LLS has invested more than $600 million in research to find the causes and cures for blood cancers. The research budget in fiscal year 2008 was $71.4 million, including funding for 129 new grants to researchers in academic institutions and $4 million in contracts through the LLS Therapy Acceleration Program. As of June 2008, LLS was supporting 388 research projects and 9 research contracts in the U.S., Canada, and 14 other countries, with a total commitment of $274 million, including:
- Leukemia research: approximately $136 million
- Lymphoma research: approximately $109 million
- Myeloma research: approximately $30 million
We figured out why they used to run the Mayor’s Marathon at Midnight back in the day….it was completely light out when we headed back to the hotel around 11pm! Friday we went to the marathon Expo to pick up our running bibs. We toured around Anchorage and met a lady from San Antonio at the coffee shop who mentioned she would be speaking at our Honored Hero Pasta Dinner that night. We met up with the group and had reindeer sausage before taking a trolley around town—we saw parts of the marathon course, the “airport” on a lake with tons of seaplanes, a moose fenced in in someone’s side yard and a few other sights you wouldn’t see here in Dallas!
Our group headed over to the brand new Anchorage convention center for the Pasta Dinner and it was quite the experience. All of our TNT staff, coaches and mentors had lined the hall and made us feel like celebrities with all of their cheering, cowbells ringing and dancing! The Anchorage Mayor spoke about how TNT had raised over $75mm for LLS since they started participating in the Mayor’s Marathon. A slideshow highlighted each chapter’s Honored Heroes – our very own Cliff showed up as well as a friend of mine, Rebecca Lawson! She’s been cancer free for five years and just moved with TNT to work in the Houston office. They had different groups of people stand up: first time marathoners, second, third, etc; the highest fundraisers ($30,000+!); triple crowners and all of the survivors that were running. It was amazing to see all of the survivors that were going to be running the next morning. Next up to the podium was the lady we met at the coffee shop – what a moving story. She found out she had breast cancer in 2005 and went through a double mastectomy and had a full recovery at the age of 38. Two years to the week of her diagnosis, she felt a lump in her throat and thought the breast cancer was back, but it wasn’t. It was leukemia. How could someone so young have two terrible cancers, and so close together?? She talked about the radiation she went through – they had to build a metal structure around her head and nail it to the table so she couldn’t move even a millimeter during the procedure as it would have been disastrous for the laser to hit the wrong spot. She held her breath the entire fifteen minutes of the procedures out of fear of moving. Early on in her Leukemia treatment, she was at a race cheering her husband on when she noticed a bunch of people wearing purple and holding TNT & LLS signs. She met them and found out about the purpose of TNT and knew that she wanted to join all of the encouraging people once she recovered. Well, she did that just a short four months after her recovery and did a triathlon with Team in Training. Talk about a strong and incredible person!!!
We headed back to the hotel to decorate our jerseys – we wore ribbons on the back of our jerseys for our heroes – mine for my granddad and a few other folks that have had blood cancers. I also wore the names of two special people that lost their battles-Rooster, Megan’s father and Brennan, Samantha’s best friend from growing up. I woke up early race day to the surprise of 14 encouraging cards from friends from home!! Quite a motivating way to start off the day! We made it to the start line pretty early and all huddled together to stay warm and danced around in anticipation of the run! The announcers called for the runners to move up front and Stephanie and Abby told me to get up there and as I walked off, Abby said “remember, you’re doing this for Cliff and Stan”. Despite seeing the course elevation map –hills the entire way-I knew I could do it because what she just said – nothing I’ve encountered in life has been as challenging as cancer and surely running 13 miles was survivable!! The starting gun went off and my feet started moving on their own (luckily)! Here’s what I remember from the half marathon: searching the supporters on the sides to find my parents – I saw Cliff and my Dad right off the bat! At miles 1, 2 and 3, I kept telling myself that I was already one third of the way through the race and at miles 4, 5 and 6, I told myself I was halfway through (obviously I had much farther to go but it was encouraging to think I was “almost” done!). The water stop at mile 4 was entertaining – the volunteers had dog outfits on and were playing “Who Let The Dogs Out?”. We ran through Earthquake Park (the land dropped 10-30 feet in the 1964 quake), along the Tony Knowles Coastal Highway and through the airport where two huge planes took off about 100 yards away. We made it to the woods and had a nice change of scenery. There were muddy stretches, parts where you had to run single file and trees limbs that tried to jump out at me! If you know me well, you will find this surprising – I only said about 6 or 8 words the entire two hours and seventeen minutes! I like to talk with my running friends when we go out, but I didn’t have anyone to talk to other than to say thanks to the awesome supporters that kept saying “Go Colleen!!”, “You can do it Colleen!!”. The first ten miles, I felt like I was constantly being passed – but it didn’t bother me that 75 year old men were running faster than me…hahah. Around that time, I started getting pretty worn out but knew I had to keep running because I was on track to run every single step of the 13.1 miles and I wasn’t about to quit. All I could think of was that I was running for Cliff and Stan like Abby said earlier. I got so excited when I saw that 12 mile marker – the end was near! About half a mile later, we met up with the full marathoners and ran up the very steep hill and I knew the finish line was at the top of the hill. Well, it wasn’t! Some sweet lady on the side line said “Go Colleen! Only a third of a mile left!”, I knew she had to be wrong!! The high school track came into sight and I started looking for my parents and there they were – right at the finish line cheering me on!! After smiling for the camera (of course I’m not going to miss a photo opportunity!), I sprinted through and finished the half marathon. Your support and encouragement made this possible. After spending the weekend with all of these strong survivors and supporters of LLS, I’ve seen the impact firsthand and the real importance behind all of the 5am runs, the fundraising and dedication of LLS to find cures for blood diseases. Team in Training is such an incredible organization. You should do it too!!! If you do, I promise to be your first donor!!
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Some may say my athleticism peaked in 3rd grade t-ball..but I don't think so!
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