In the last month I left the job I loved at Schipul and am now working at Sam Houston Race Park and going back to school at University of Houston in the summer for my pre-reqs to apply to medical school. All these changes have thrown a bit of a kink in the wheel and my training and fundraising was not a priority. It’s hard to raise money for charity when you’re not making money to pay the bills.

So now I’m back on track and refocusing on Team in Training. Phew! But here’s the thing. I’m not training for a marathon for the sake of running a marathon, I’m also raising money to find a cure for blood cancer. So with that in mind, I have a goal of raising $5,500 by June 20. To show my commitment to Team in Training I need to have a minimum of $2,000 by March 27. Eek! I only have $225. I’m freaking out! Worst of all, I’m afraid I won’t get to continue and meet my goal of running my first ever marathon. Ever worser (lol) I won’t be able to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society raise money to fight blood cancer. I’m not going to lie…I’m really, really worried.

It doesn’t take a lot to make a big difference. Are you a numbers person? So am I. Here’s how far your donation goes:

$1,000 Will help The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society fund a researcher to find a cure.

$500 Will provide patient aid to a person with leukemia or a related cancer for a year.

$100 Will provide a patient with transportation cost associated with traveling from home to the cancer center.

$75 Will provide bone morrow typing for a family member of a patient with leukemia.

$50 Will register one person to be a bone marrow donor.

$25 Will pay for the cost of a patients chemotherapy drug prescription co-pay.

Will you please consider helping the LLS and me by donating just $10 for the cure against cancer? Believe me, your donation will not go unnoticed. I plan on having a huge thank you party for all donors (and Fayza doesn’t know it yet, but she’s gonna help me plan it. She did the very same marathon in Alaska last year that I am doing  ). But more than that, your donation is majorly important and incredibly appreciated.
Oh! And if you want to donate anonymously that’s cool too! If you want to donate, this is the place!

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

I’m starting to get shin splints so when I got home I took an ice bath. Essentially, I ran the coldest water I could, add ice from my freezer and sat waste deep in a sweatshirt in the tub. It was painful for about the first minute but after sitting for about 10 minutes and getting out, my legs felt awesome. I had no trouble with my shin splints last night at our Wednesday night training.

So last night we did some time trials to predict our marathon pace. My mile was 8:31 min.  So based on the Jeff Galloway Race Prediction Calculator my marathon pace is 11:04 min/mile or 4:50:05 for the whole thing. I have a feeling it will end up being more than that though, but overall I’m pretty happy with the possibility. I still won’t qualify for the Boston Marathon. My qualifying time there would have to be an hour and ten minutes less of 3:40.

This is just my first marathon, so maybe someday I will be able to run the Boston Marathon.  But right now, I’m getting ahead of myself.

This Saturday practice begins at 6 am and we’ll be running 10 miles! Eek!

If you’re interested in donating to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and supporting me as I train for the Mayor’s Marathon check out my Team in Training donations page. I would love to have your support!