EXCITED...INDOMITABLE...HAPPY =)

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Today I cancelled my hotel reservation for The Boston Marathon and I thought I would be sad, but instead I felt a bit of elation.  July 30^th, that is the date, I will be running my portion of the Coast to Coast for Cancer Marathon into DC, as the date draws near I feel a spark and hunger for adventure, it’s almost like a giant springboard towards something new and amazing.  Yes, I have run a marathon, I have certainly raised money for different organizations, but to run 26.2 miles FOR cancer as a cancer survivor while raising $7,500 to help other cancer patients gives me a feeling that I do not think I can put into words.  I truly hope that if you are able to run with me that day you will join me for some, if not all of the miles.  You can purchase a mile for $200, and dedicate it to whomever you wish (but you can run with me regardless of donation).

Donate Here

Giving back, paying it forward, call it what you will…I still deal physically with the aftermath of a horrific birth experience as well as the many effects that cancer and the treatment have had on my body, but here I am, running marathons to help people in my same situation; for the first time in my life I feel like screaming “look at me, look at me”, the feeling is that invigorating...to be able to give back as I am still going through it. 

Running after cancer is THE BEST!!!!

As I raise money through your generous donations I am helping other cancer patients by providing direct patient care, yet on some level I am hoping that I may offer someone a spark of hope, a beacon of hope.  Having gone through cancer at age 36 I did not have anyone I could look to or relate to…I pray that you will share my story if you know ANYONE going through cancer and the rigors and hell of treatment.  Let them know that you can thrive after and even during treatment, that cancer does not end your life…it simply changes your journey.  Your cancer may cause your body to eventually fail but all bodies fail one day, my goal has always been to keep my cancer from killing my spirit.  God has blessed me with an indomitable will, an unusual energy level, and dauntless determination…cancer can take NONE of those things from me…unless I allow it to...sorry folks, I am rooting for me on this one!

If you have been considering donating to my race please do so…do it now!

Boston Derailed...

Coast-to-Coast for Cancer

Not this year for me...
maybe one day,
but then maybe not.
Life will certainly
go on...which is awesome.

So as we all know I have been training for the Boston Marathon for quite some time now…Boston is officially out and I have been derailed, sidetracked and otherwise redirected.  About 10 weeks ago I began having a lot of pain in my left tibia…I assumed this was a previous stress fracture from two years ago reasserting itself.  Turns out my last tibial stress fracture was in my right leg and this one was brand-new.  DAMN.  Broken.  THIS does not make Boston look very promising.

Looking for a bright side to this situation I decide that I will take up swimming (immediately jumping into two slow miles a day) and preparing to unleash my inner triathlete.  Since running is out I decide that it is time to get my Interstim replaced (bladder pacemaker) it had not been working for over 4 months and having the ability to empty my bladder is always an added bonus in my very unique little universe.

Running Boston has never been a bucket list item or life goal for me and I am not devastated to miss it, but I am disappointed…for me there would be a kinship with people insane enough to train at that level, shocker right?

Whatever happens at least I won't be doing this for 26.2 miles...

Still swimming and finding comfort working towards a new goal of a triathlon I find out about this AWESOME marathon opportunity.  They are having a Coast-to-Coast marathon to raise money for cancer (Donate Here)…all types of cancer.  There will be 160 runners passing a baton across the ENTIRE country traversing 4,000 miles from Washington State to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and I am going to be one of those runners…WOO-HOO…this is WAY better than Boston for me.

This is me knowing that I get run
 and help patients with cancer at the same time.Oh yeah...I've got swagger.

As a breast cancer survivor people always want to know why I do not do more Komen events, the three-day and all of the races…etc.  I am a HUGE supporter of Komen and breast cancer fundraising in general, but so are a lot of people.  The Coast-to-Coast marathon assists patients with ALL types of cancer and that makes me happy. 

Having gone through breast cancer I can assure you that thanks to Nancy Brinker and the Susan G. Komen foundation every single aspect of breast cancer is either covered by your insurance or financed by any one of a number of amazing organizations.  I have watched too many of my friends with other types of cancer fight tooth and nail to get even very basic needs covered by insurance. 

Please come and be
indomitable with me!

Needless to say this race is the first of its kind…runners going from Coast-to-Coast with the goal of raising a million dollars towards cancer research and direct patient care.  My portion is $7,500 and I am going to need your help to get there…please consider donating or even “buying a mile” for $200 (Donate Here).  You can also form your own team or join mine and raise money with me and join me on race day (sometime around July 25^th in the DC area…specific time and day soon).

I would love a crowd of my friends and supporters there to fight cancer with me.

Although Boston is not in my immediate future I am feeling lots of new and exciting things on the horizon…Boston Derailed…absolutely.  Opportunity knocking?  Always.  Swimming, Triathlons, Coast-to-Coast for Cancer and a chance to give something back.

Life is full of amazing blessings.

I came across this just this morning:

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, “I used everything you gave me.”

-Erma Bombeck

Do you want to join me on my big run?

Can you donate?

Do you always try to find the opportunity in the disappointments? 

Why do I run?

Why do I run?

Cherry Pit Ten Miler
One of my very best race days!

You would actually be surprised by how often I get this question and I never really have just one answer, it usually depends on what day you ask me and where I am in my training.

About seven years ago my sister Kim told me that she was going to run a marathon and I think my response was not your typical congratulatory cheer and shout of encouragement, in fact, it sounded *exactly* like, “What????  Are you stupid or something?  Did mom and dad drop you on your head as an infant and forget to mention it to the rest of us?” 

Clearly I am the bitchy sister.

Kim trained for and ran in many marathons, over time I became more supportive but was secretly cheering my obviously superior IQ (because really, 26.2 miles for fun, I mean that’s just asinine).

Then I got cancer…

Turns out I never ran because I had large (HUGE) breasts.  Deep down I knew that the four bras I had to wear for field hockey and teaching step aerobics dug deep into my shoulders, but I was in shape, I figured I could run if I wanted to, I just did not want to.  The only time I ran was when a team I was playing on lost…then I did laps.  Lots of boobie bouncing, shoulder blistering laps.

Back to the cancer. 

Overall Female Champion...Lucky Number!

After a double mastectomy and a huge breast reduction (I went from a duckpin bowling ball to about a tennis ball) I was very slow returning to my normal exercise regimen.  I was only allowed to walk and since I had a 7 month old baby girl, she took her morning and afternoon naps in the stroller.  I healed and progressed, eventually I was walking 12-16 miles each day.  Then I got bored, so I started jogging to one mailbox and walking to the next, as I continued to recover the walking portions became much shorter than the jogging portions.

After a year I was going for regular runs.  I still thought a marathon was a ridiculous distance and I was going to just stick to running 7-10 miles a day like any *sane* person would do.  My run became a very necessary part of my day, my personal time, I had been through a lot and needed the one thing a run always offered me, a quiet mind. 

Over time I began running with friends and they told me I was doing quite well but I never really thought about it as a sport, it was honestly my outlet, the only time I was not feeling scared and anxious.  I had not discovered the joy of wine and I had quit smoking years earlier.  It was literally my only vice (not a bad one, right?).

I had a friend encourage me to run the Cherry Blossom Miler in 2010 this was my very first race, I ran it in 1:22:16 and thought nothing of it.  I took it easy, enjoyed the course and loved being surrounded by people who loved running as much as I did.

Rock and Roll Marathon...enjoying my crazy!

The next weekend however I had an epiphany.  One of the biggest local races we have is the Run for Hospice and I chose to run the 10K, it was just for fun and the whole community is out for this amazing event.  The biggest surprise for me was finishing as the 2^nd overall female in the race (only 2^nd to my good friend who is one of the fastest female runners I have ever met).  At this point I decided to explore running as a sport rather than just my own personal happy place.

I have continued my running and expanded it in ways that at one time I thought were crazy (now I KNOW they’re crazy) I win some, I lose some, but I always learn a lot.  I know that I am happiest when I am running and that my sister had it all wrong, her mistake was in settling for a marathon.

Why on earth would you run a marathon when there are ULTRA MARATHONS?  This year I qualified for The Boston Marathon and will run it in April.  After that I plan to stick with the smaller, lower key events.  The kind or races where you meet the other runners and learn what their motivation is, how their life and running brought them to this place. 

Since beginning this journey (2 ½ years ago) I have run three 10Ks, two 10 milers, two ½ marathons, five marathons, four 50K’s, a few longer distances which just make me sound crazy, and too many 5K’s to count. 

Clearly I lost my marbles at some point but it is the one activity that keeps me grounded and is just for me.  I have found my happy place and I am going to run with it.

If you’re a runner, what’s your motivation?

Have you ever thought someone was crazy for doing something and then not only done the stupid thing, but loved it so much that you even took it to the next level of stupid?

My story...condensed



Me today, happy healthy and strong.

Before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I knew I was a survivor.
 

On October 1^st, 2007, we joyously welcomed our third daughter, Clara Elizabeth, into our family.  The C-section went smoothly and we were looking forward to a speedy recovery.  Things did not go as planned.  Sixty hours after her birth, barely alive, I was rushed into surgery to evacuate a massive retroperitoneal hemorrhage, so large it had displaced my kidneys and bladder and had even caused my lungs to collapse. 



Barely alive after multiple blood transfusions.  At least I'm off the ventilator!

I woke up in the ICU on a ventilator, 57 staples running from my chest all the way down, minus a uterus, and a long way from recovery.  My baby, along with my dreams of a large family went home two weeks before I did.  It took an amazing nurse, many generous blood donors, extremely supportive friends and family, and a lot of inner strength to begin healing.

This was the end of a long journey for my husband and me.  Our first daughter was born blind (our Amazing Grace who can now see), our second daughter was born asleep; we were blessed with Ella in our third pregnancy, but lost another daughter on our fourth try.  We were physically and mentally exhausted.

When Clara was 7 months old I decided it was time to get a physical, with a family history of breast cancer this always included a mammogram even though I was only 36. 
Obviously I would not be writing this essay if the results had come back clean and clear.  After 7 months of constant medical appointments dealing with the aftermath of a horrific birth experience I was about to fight for my life one more time and I was not sure I was prepared for battle.
In life it is so amazing how quickly our perspective can change. 

As I went through the normal battery of diagnostic testing we were thrilled at how BLESSED I was to have DCIS.  Since both of my breasts were scattered with DCIS coming to terms with a double mastectomy proved to be very difficult for me.  My breasts were how I fed and comforted my babies.  Clara was only 7 months old and I had just lost my uterus, could I really stand to lose all my female parts in under a year?  Would I ever feel like a woman again?  Would a love of shoes be all that separated me from the boys? 

Again, after almost dying in child birth and then getting a double mastectomy less than a year later I found myself proclaiming how BLESSED I was, negative nodes!!!!  Perspective is an amazing thing.

As I began to heal from yet another major surgery I started walking daily. Clara took her morning and afternoon naps in the stroller as I pushed my way back to health.  After several months I began jogging between mailboxes….this was a MIRACLE!  Having developed large breasts in the 6^th grade I had literally never been able to run, I could teach step aerobics and spinning all day long, but the repetitive motion of running was too hard on my breasts and back. 

As my body regained its muscular strength, I was regaining my inner strength.  I am a longtime group fitness instructor and have had the opportunity to help so many women as they heal from breast cancer treatments.  I am able to listen and relate to their struggles as I teach them to exercise slowly and safely.  Each time I get another survivor physically ready to return to their normal lives I feel like I have beaten cancer one more time.  Our minds heal so much more quickly when we are moving.

Our bodies can overcome so much and with enough work, passion and dedication it is possible to come back and be as strong as or even stronger than before.  We are often surrounded by people with excuses or an “I can’t” attitude, being a warrior against breast cancer shows us that obstacles are meant to hurdled, cleared or completely obliterated! 

Having never run before cancer, I have now completed five marathons (even qualifying for the Boston Marathon by ten minutes), many 50Ks, and other (even longer) distance races.  I was the first place survivor at the 5K Komen Race for the Cure in Maryland last year...tears of joy streaming down my face as I crossed the finish line, completely decked out in a pink tutu! 
 
Life is good and I am happy to say how incredibly BLESSED I have been! 

Perspective.

My husband Mike and three daughters were at the finish line when I qualified for Boston, these are my true blessings.