good news!

great news!! keeping this one short and sweet, but i heard a few days ago from my company's HR manager and her friend shelsea is ok! the doctors were wrong and it's not lymphoma. whoohoo! such great news :)

chugging along for shelsea

i've been participating in team in training and raising money for the leukemia and lymphoma society for over a year now, and recently i had one of the most touching experiences that brought me closer to the cause than ever before.

i got in touch with my company's human resources manager last week to find out if we have matching gifts or corporate sponsorship opportunities, and am so glad i did so. not only did she help bring my fundraising goal to the attention of the co-ceos and president of our company, but she even more importantly told me the story of a close friend of hers who is battling lymphoma.

her close friend shelsea was recently diagnosed with lymphoma and is currently fighting a tough battle against the disease. just last week, she was in the hospital having surgery on her lymph nodes to help battle the cancer. while i have never met shelsea, her story is so powerful and i will be so proud to run in her honor on race day, wearing her name on my jersey (yes, that is a picture of me from behind on race day in alaska...hot). these are the people that we're out there running for. no, hill repeats are not enjoyable and sore quads are not exactly a cup of tea, but they are nothing compared to the fight she is fighting. if one more day of sore legs means one more year of shelsea staying out of the hospital, i'll take sore legs every day.

i hope one day i'm able to meet shelsea and tell her in person how moving her story is and how touched i am to have been able to hear it. in the meantime, i will keep chugging along - slowly but surely - until one day we find a cure.

when in rome...

...run like the romans! ok that might not have worked but you see where i'm going with this.

like any good marathoner, i've planned out the next year of my life in terms of races to run, miles to cover, vacations to take while icing my shins and applying body glide like it's my job. which is why lana and i are already getting the wheels turning on participating in the rome marathon in march 2009 (lana, i'm dragging you into this whether you like it or not)! originally i was hoping TNT would participate in the paris marathon (um, awesome) but the latest news is that rome it is. i actually found myself thinking for a second "that sucks, i don't want to go to rome, i'd rather run paris" and then i realized "holy crap katherine you're an idiot, you could run a marathon in ROME."

but then again, four consecutive marathons for a former track team manager who watched her high school friends puke after mile repeats from the comfort of her air conditioned jetta and swore never to voluntarily sweat excessively... that seems like a little much. so to re-convince myself why i'm doing this thing, i read back through this blog and stumpled upon lana's post about the email i sent when i got into the nike women's marathon and realized that running marathons has this crazy way of making people happy despite sore quads and blistered feet, so why should we ever think twice about running one in italy?! plus we're helping fund cancer research and potentially save lives, so that's pretty awesome too.

stepping up my game

i'm back! and this time hopefully it won't be another month before you see another post from me...

last night was the oh-so-nauseating but somehow empowering cat hill repeats workout, through which lana and i successfully managed to kick each others butts for seven high effort repeats up one of central park's beloved hills. as much as my glutes were not a fan (and the 90 degree heat didn't help with the nausea), it was so nice to finally make it to practice!! and to have access to lana's wonderful life advice (lana - just go be a life coach already, it's your calling)

in other news, after two weeks of being a complete waste of space and working far more hours that i signed up for, i'm finally up and RUNNING again! i managed to run saturday, twice sunday, monday and tuesday of this past week and am actually feeling like i can potentially run this marathon in october... eep. sunday i went up to rockefeller state park in westchester and had the pleasure of running next to the entire columbia track team! it's always fun to see someone's cool down look like a 100-meter sprint... guess i have a lot more progress to make in this whole running thing...

Test 3 - 2 Mile Repeats

Not too much to say here except that I miss Kat (maybe we can all petition her boss to let her out at a reasonable time on Tuesdays)! I went to practice and did my 2-mile repeats by myself and was the last one. Sandy ran with me on the last one but I ended up chatting with her and it probably cost me a few seconds. It was probably the fastest I've run for a longer than 1 mile. I averaged about 9:34 per mile. Let's see if I can sustain that for 6.2 miles in this weekend's Nike Human Race. There's a concert after (All American Rejects) and I can get a few companion tickets for $20 so let me know if you're interested asap :)

Trailing Behind Thomas

Since my last night run, I decided it might be wise to find a running partner. The problem is that almost everyone I know is faster than me :( . I got Thomas to agree to a short 4 mile run around the inner loop of CP with a warm up from Columbus Circle to 72nd and then cool down (walk) back from 72nd to Columbus Circle. I didn't time it right but I think I was going super fast because:

1-I couldn't really talk
2-I had to stop at every fountain
3-We actually did pass some people (even if they were senior citizens walking their dogs ;) )
4-My heart rate was around 200 :(
5-I was about 1/2 foot behind Thomas the whole way and he was trying to slow down from his usual pace :P (but I guess that's how you get faster right?)

I had fun though and ran past (they were travelling the opposite way so I definitely didn't pass them) Coaches Kelly and Steve from last season's TNT session. I also saw Ramon but of course it was on my WALK back to Columbus Circle. I swear he's going to think I'm a walker and not a runner because he always catches me walking...

Pier Side Paranoia

So normally long runs are on Saturdays but there are so many non-profits and so little time that this Saturday, I had to skip group training. I got to play on the playground with a bunch of the kids from the mentor program I'm a part of through NY Youth At Risk. Their moms are the mentees and it's really amazing so please check it out if you're interested in learning about yourself and helping to shape a younger person's life.

Anyway, since I missed training on Saturday and was dead tired after playing with kids all day, I decided I would run on Sunday night. The run was only for 10 miles so it shouldn't take me too long and I figured it didn't get dark that early, right? Well, sort of right.

I mapped the run out so I knew I would run from my apartment west to Riverside, up to 91st and back down to 14th street. I started at about 8pm and the sun was still up. I got to about 21st when it really started to set and I began to question if I would complete my run. I decided that I was determined (though not very smart) and that I would be able to finish the run in no time. After all, there were plenty of people around, even though it was dark. I get to the 60's or 70's and I realize it's not just a little dark, it's very dark and there are no lights. I'm under the west side highway and it's just me and one other runner on the trail. I pass this other runner and realize it's probably not smart to run in front of some strange guy at night with my headphones on so I take them off. That scares the hell out of me though because now I can hear him breathing and running behind me. NOT GOOD>I should tell you that I'm a Law & Order addict and was raised by an extremely paranoid mother and grandmother so I'm basically freaking out at this point. I find an escape down a better lit path and realize that there's a concert going on up ahead. At this point I'm out of breath because I've picked up the pace quite a bit.

A few blocks later, my phone rings (I sometimes run with my iphone/ipod) and it's my grandmother. Why I answer, I'm not sure because I'm sure she'll rattle off all of the news stories about females found dead or raped in the park and I begin to have visions of some kayaker finding my floating corpse during their free lesson. (Again a very "Law & Order" opening scene). I hang up w/ her and continue my run...is that Police tape I see? My imagination is running pretty wild by the time I'm finished and at 14th street at 10PM! At least I'm back to civilization by the time I hit 10th Ave. Oh yeah and I'm alive. From now on, I think I'll stick to running with the group :)