See Dawn Run!

So here's the story....

How many of you have a list of things you want to accomplish in your life? Some of you probably have this stuff written down or perhaps you've scribbled it on a piece of paper and tucked it away somewhere. For me, I have things that keep coming back to my mind. I'll see something or I'll be doing something and it will suddenly occur to me that I'd like to see myself experiencing that challenge for personal growth.

A MARATHON is probably the last thing many of you expected me to want to do. After all, I'm sporty but not enough to be skinny. I'm athletic but I still have love handles. So I guess I don't look like I'd want to run a marathon. The idea of a marathon got on my radar actually about 5 or 6 years ago when my friend H was running her first marathon. WOW, I thought. It was amazing to see her confidence grow and her happiness come through every time I talked to her about it. I too wanted to have that feeling of accomplishment of something I needed to be physically and mentally disciplined to do. But I didn't immediately jump on the band wagon because of all the things I had going on in my life: work, school, etc.

This year, I've been experiencing more aches and pains than usual. Perhaps I am beginning to physically feel my age or perhaps I am at a turning point in my life (or both). This summer in particular, I've been admittedly feeling restless and uncomfortable with my life for reasons I can't discuss here. So I decided it was time to do something to reaffirm myself. Also this past year, a friend of mine as well as a family member were diagnosed with their respective forms of cancer. During that period of time, all I could do was just be supportive but I felt so helpless. I didn't like that feeling of being unable to help. When I came across Team In Training again, I knew this experience would be a way for me to feel like I've accomplished something great for myself, but also something greater for all people who are diagnosed with cancer, who are cancer survivors, and their family and friends who must also suffer through the experience with them.

So at the beginning of this summer I asked Mary if she wanted to do a marathon with me and she immediately lit up with enthusiasm. I decided if I had someone to help me through this, I'd do it. Mary convinced me to do the Nike Half-Marathon in San Francisco in October so here I am today.

It's been three weeks of training so far and it's been such a great experience personally. I can't even begin to express the amount of personal growth I've experienced in this short amount of time. I've decided to start this blog for several reasons. First, I've decided to keep track of this crazy thing I'm going to do. How many times in my life will I experience training for a marathon for the first time? Second, I want to help keep all of you connected to me, to help you all understand what I'm going through, and to perhaps think about personal challenges in your life that you dream of tackling but for some reason, are not doing it at this moment. Third, I hope that this blog keeps you connected to the cause I am running for: raising money to help fund cancer research. I know that each of you have had a personal experience with cancer: a family member, a close friend, a co-worker, a neighbor. So I hope you visit this blog as well as my fundraising site to keep track of how I'm doing to encourage me when I'm sore and tired and I've momentarily forgotten about why I'm doing this in this first place.

Thank you all ahead of time for your love and support. I know this experience will be a fantastic one! I hope you follow along to see me run.