Running For A Cure

Today marks the one year anniversary of my mother being cancer free. I think this is an incredible milestone and something to be celebrated. I am blessed to still have a mother walking this world and probably do not tell her often enough how much I love her and most likely should. She has had a rough go of it the past few years and the breast cancer was just the icing on the proverbial cake after a string on bumps in life's road including a heart aneurysm that resulted in open heart surgery. Now she goes to work everyday and pushes the clock of life as if nothing ever happened, her strong will and vigor for life are things to be envied. Most people today tend to give up and surrender to even the smallest setback in life. I think my drive for life must have come from her.

We are going to celebrate with her tonight and I can't think of a better reason to celebrate than the victory over such a horrific disease. I have had a few people close to me suffer with various cancers. Some having heroic victories and some losing the fight, but losing it after they were able to pour out the best of them into their friends and family. My sister-in-law is another survivor and she was diagnosed and treated while she was in medical school. Now she has lived through one of the hardest things imaginable and has gained incredible insight into her chosen profession. What an amazing journey to be able truly understand things from a patients perspective and interact with such compassion and understanding with those she is treating.

I will be running several races thins summer and hadn't planned on rasing money for the charities hosting the races, but I think I will. The closer to a cure we come the more incredible life stories will come from the miracles of modern medicine. If you are interested in supporting a worthy cause let me know and I will let you know how you can sponsor me on any or all of the races I run this summer.

Runs I will be doing for certain this year:
Frostbite Footrace, Fur Rondy 2010
The Heart Run
The MS Walk
Twilight 12K
Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon
Eklutna Lake Challenge

There are several other runs I plan on doing, The Kenai River Run is a great way to end the season and as I did it last year is a great fast run.

Today's run was a short one as I had not intended to run, but after shoveling snow in the driveway I was inspired and decided to go for a run in the sunny afternoon. We had almost 7" of snow come down yesterday and the streets have been cleared but the paths and sidewalks have not. So I opted to run in the neighborhood on the streets and I set a personal best for my fastest mile thing year. I ran 1.34 miles today, with a time of 8'30" for the first mile. I am now 31.11 miles into my journey (4933.89 to go). This puts me in the middle of the Knik River Bridge on AK-1.