I was afraid I’d cramp up again like I did during Week 2′s session. As a preventative measure I not only drank water before I left the house but I had a banana. I also bought a handheld water bottle to take with me on my run/walk and I also had a bottle of Gatorade waiting for me in the car for the ride home. Surprisingly the 50 minutes went by super fast and I survived. My stats were:

3.59 miles in 50 minutes with a pace of 14’32″ per mile. Not bad. Slower than the week before but that’s ok because I was able to do my intervals the entire time instead of having to stop and walk for a good portion of it. That time is still within the range of what Disney is looking for so I’m good as long as I can keep that pace

My stats for this week are:

I was able to do 3.24 miles in 40 minutes with a pace of 12’48″ per mile. Not bad, not bad at all!

This coming Saturday will be a 50 min run/walk. If you would have asked me a year ago how I’d manage to run/walk for 50min straight I’d tell you that you were crazy. Now I can’t help but be excited about the prospect of not only doing 50 min, but eventually doing 13.1 miles!

I Run because I am not a scientist and cannot help by research and experiments.

I Run because I can and they cannot.

Well today I ventured on the widow boards just to do a quick glance and see if there was anything interesting to read, sometimes there really is something non-depressing to read. I came across a post from a lady that is dating a guy and this guy basically came out and told her that he felt like she was his Happily Ever After, his Once In A Lifetime. Beautiful words to say to someone. It basically freaked her out to hear that come from his mouth.

The first person to reply to her post basically told her to look at it this way, she was her late husband’s Happily Ever After. His Once in a Lifetime. And when you think of it that way, one word…..WOW! You take such a morbid and horrible event and you put a positive spin on it. How would anyone not want to have *THAT* at the time they die? I know I want that Happily Ever After when I die. That’s probably why I’ve chosen to make each and every day of my life right now a happy one because quite frankly I don’t know if I’ll be here. So until I find that Happily Ever After, well I’m going to be happy on my own

I got there and got my training shirt, and drank some water to hydrate myself. They went over some stretches that we should do before we take off to help us prevent injury. Then we broke up into groups, the runners, the run/walkers, and the walkers. I decided to take off with the walkers today because my bad foot was acting up last night. I figured better safe to not push myself yet. Today was a 30 min walk and my foot didn’t bother me at all during the walk. I’m going to try to do some run/walk intervals this week at the gym. If it starts to hurt I’ll stop and resume walking but I need to give it a try to see if my foot is better and more importantly ready to resume running.

I’m soooooooooooo excited for this. Yeah it means my Saturday mornings for the next 5 months are shot, but you know what? I’m ok with that. Because in the end I’ll be doing my first race at Disney having raised a lot of money for a wonderful cause, and more importantly I’ll get to cross that finish line knowing that I’m helping make a difference for so many lives.

I will be posting weekly training recaps here on my blog so that everyone can follow my progress. If you haven’t donated yet and would like to you can easily do so by clicking on the Team in Training link on the right hand side of this page. Thank you for helping out bring us closer to a cure for lymphoma and leukemia!

Back in the day, when we still lived in Tallahassee Gary insisted that I go to an orthodontist to get it looked at since I hate it so much. This was around the time we got engaged, so about 7 years ago. The doc I saw tried to put me into traditional braces or at least retainers but couldn’t guarantee it would work with retainers alone. He gave me a price and I just wasn’t ready enough to bite the bullet.

Fast forward to a little over a year ago. I was at my dentist for my normal cleaning and they mentioned invisalign. Apparently my dentist was just starting out to offer them. He took impressions and even gave me a rough quote. Gary was about to start chemo and I just didn’t feel like the timing was right, so once again I put my teeth on the back burner. Fast forward again to a few months ago. Once again I was at my dentist for my cleaning and I asked about invisalign. I went through and did the impressions again, but this time I was ready! A few weeks later I got a quote and ok’d it with my dentist. And then a few weeks after that I got my kit.

I need a total of 7 trays for the top teeth and 15 for my bottoms, and each tray lasts 2 full weeks. I’m on my 2nd tray set right now and overall its not too horribly bad. I do have some discomfort as soon as I switch trays but that is to be expected. I mean it *is* moving my teeth….or at least I hope. I am experiencing some “symptoms” that I think are tied to the invisalign but I won’t really know for sure until it happens again. Basically as soon as I put a new set of trays in for the first couple of days I get a sore throat. Then as soon as that subsides I get conjunctivitis….aka pink eye. I got pink eye 2 weeks ago and got antibiotic eye drops but for it to happen almost exactly 2 weeks later, its a tad suspicious. Especially since I have a toddler that is all up in my face and he has yet to get whatever I have. So this time I have allergic conjunctivitis in both of my eyes. I have allergy eye drops to use to help the situation. If this happens again in 2 weeks then I’ll know that I’m allergic to something in my invisalign. I really really really hope that this isn’t the case.

Logically I know that his body just couldn’t take it anymore, but I’ve watched my fair share of movies with people debating on whether to walk toward that comforting white light or go back to their body and well ummmm W.T.F!!!! How could he have chosen that light? Did he not see me freaking out outside of his room? How could he possibly think that *I* could raise Michael on my own? I mean I have no doubt that I can do it, because quite frankly I do NOT have a choice, but still knowing that his father left him when he was 2 and how he didn’t want to repeat that himself, how could he do that to us?

Like I said logically I know Gary didn’t have a choice here. But man if you were in my shoes you still can’t help but get angry from time to time. I totally blame it on the entertainment world for conveying heaven the way they do to all of us.

Like I’ve said before I’m NOT a runner. Never have been so running at all is a BIG deal for me. Last week was my first week running. I am slowly easing into it by doing the Couch 2 5k program. Week 1 was a BREEZE, except for the fact that I learned that the sneakers I was using were BAD. REALLY BAD! They caused the arch of one of my feet to hurt like hell. I went to a running store and got something to help me with that pain as well as got them to size me up to the right shoes for my feet. Well worth the money!

Today was day 1 of week 2 of C25k and energy-wise I did great. I didn’t get out of breath or anything. My calves started hurting a little but by the time they’d get unbearable my running interval would switch to a walking one and they’d get all better. Once I was done with my 29 minute workout my calves were perfectly fine. But when they were hurting I’d focus straight at the tv’s even though I wasn’t really making sense of what was on. It was that focus that got me through the pain. In my head I tell myself that it really doesn’t hurt and that the pain I was experiencing was NOTHING compared to the pain Gary went through with chemo.

He is going to get me through my training……HE is going to get me through my half marathon! I will NOT let the pain bring me down.

So it was a no-brainer when I got the little postcard in the mail from Team in Training mentioning their info sessions for the upcoming winter season. Which just so happens to include the Disney marathon weekend. I immediately signed myself up for a session That session was this morning and I was so excited to go. Sooooooo excited. Being there and watching their little video just totally reassured me of the reason why I want to do this. I want to do this not only for Gary but for all of the others out there that are going through treatments for their blood cancer or those that will one day get diagnosed. I want a cure for this and like I’ve said before, whatever it takes from me I plan on doing it. So I filled out all of the paperwork and paid my registration fee so that I can run/walk (hopefully run) the Disney Half Marathon this coming January. It couldn’t be better timing either. I’ll be running my first half marathon EVER just days after the year anniversary of Gary’s death. Just thinking about the timing of all of it gives me chills.

I know people think I’m crazy for doing this but look at it from my perspective. I got to see my very healthy husband go from the pinnacle of health to someone that was gasping for air. I got to see him dwindle away to skin and bones while he was on his horrible treatment. I saw him cry when he was in pain….scream when things hurt…and pass out on the floor because his body just couldn’t keep him upright. At the time I felt helpless, now I know exactly how I can help. Yeah I can’t help Gary, but if he could put his life on the line in hopes of finding a cure for his very rare form of lymphoma well then the least I can do is put myself through a 6 month training program so that I can ultimately run 13.1 miles.

So stay tuned. I plan on posting updates. Training officially starts on August 14th Before then I’m hoping to have my website up so that I can start raising my money so that I can actually participate. I have a minimum that I have to raise in order to go in January so I can definitely use all of the help I can get.