Hi All!
It's hard to believe just over a year ago, I committed to run the 2014 London Marathon for
Children with Cancer UK. The support of colleagues, friends, family, and FTers was amazing (
LINK) and I exceeded my fundraising goal by nearly 25%!.
London - Mile 25!
The day after completing London, I found out I was accepted for the Chicago Marathon. I knew training would be different - partly due to lessons learned for London and largely because I would be in Kabul, Afghanistan (at 5k+ feet with terrible air quality) for the first two months of the "training cycle."
Upon returning from KBL, I ran a half in Dublin which was one of my worst races in the 18 months I've been actively running 10k's, half marathons, and now marathons. Following this, I was quite worried about how Chicago was going to go...slow time, my hands looked like Mickey Mouse's hands, just an overall mess.
While on a trip to HKG with my sister and brother-in-law, I got a phone call from a London # (picked up since I thought it was odd. It was Children with Cancer calling to ask if I'd run with them again for the 2015 London Marathon. Crazy or not, my automatic reply was, "Yes, of course." So there I was...a couple of weeks after the mess that was London, concerned about if/how I'd be able to finish Chicago, and had just agreed to run a third marathon and raise funds to support a cause I truly believe in.
Upon returning from HKG, I continued training towards Chicago. It was slow going for a variety of reasons. And then I fell about 2.5 weeks beforehand; nothing like some road rash and stickers but at least I was close to home. I ran a 10k the following weekend (yes, there are in fact some hills to be found in London and I ran up and down them several times) - my leg didn't like it but I survived and was glad it was time to look at tapering.
Over Columbus Day weekend, I headed to ORD. As with London, my sister came from SoCal and brought along my nephew since we were staying with friends. With my (not fit) sister traipsing all across Chicago, I completed the race on Oct. 12, 2014. A few more lessons learned, but it was a great day!!
Another Mile 25! (26 not far away....right!?)
And, now, I look towards London on April 26, 2015. While it seems really far away, I know it'll be here in what seems like an instant! As part of training, I've already booked the Austin Half Marathon in February and Cambridge (UK) Half in March.
I run in honor of two families I know - one family has a son who is about 2.5 years into 3 years of chemo treatment for leukemia and the other family lost their son (entered remission from leukemia in middle school, sucumbed to it their sophomore year of college).
Back of my TeamCwCUK tank:
If you would like to contribute -
LINK.
I really appreciate your consideration as I work towards this goal!!
As of today, I'm at £167.88 thanks to a combination of making Mexican food for my coworkers (NOT a cuisine easily or decently available in the UK) and eBay sales.
robin