One Month Left!

In exactly one month I will have hopefully be sunbathing by my sister's pool in Miami and will have my first 1/2 marathon behind me! I am very excited that there is only a month left but it also means that I have to push myself harder this month to reach my goal for the race. Today I ran for 6 miles under 9 minutes a mile so I was very pleased, especially since Chris was not around to push me.

Todays run was perfect weather (64 degrees) as that is what the weather should be when we start the race at 6am in Miami in a month. Earlier I ran this week inside on treadmills and I realized that I really do hate treadmills. I wanted to run more inside to get used to warmer climates but I just can't seem to do it. I am hoping to at least push myself in the next few weeks to do one run inside per week but it will not be pretty. The inside runs really got me scared about the heat in Miami, but today running outside (granted it was cloudy) I did fine so I will hope for a cloudy morning the day of the race.

I slowed down some this week in terms of training due to the holidays but I will be able to bounce back in the weeks to come. I also got some new running shoes and a weeks worth of both warm and cold weather running stuff for Christmas! I am so excited since some of the stuff I have been wearing was 10 years old! Which on the up side I guess it is exciting that I could still fit in them! I hope everyone had a chance to spend some time with there families and that you all have a happy New Years!

Double Digits

I hit the double digits on our team run this weekend at Burke Lake, 10 miles! It is hard to believe that I have come this far, the runs certainly are not easy but I am pushing through them. It also helps when you have some great teammates like Lynn to keep you moving on those days when you are just not into it. This week will be a challenge getting in all of my runs and cardio in with the holidays....

Jingle All the Way 10K

This past weekend about half of our Team Challenge group met to run in the Jingle All the Way 10K. I was very excited as this was another opportunity to run a race with Chris as a lot of my training I have been doing without him. We were worried that we would not get a personal record as there were over 4,000 runners and it was very crowded at the beginning. The race was very entertaining as many people were dressed in Santa suits, etc and a majority of people had bells on their shoes.

We got off to a slow start and got to the half way point around 30 minutes. From there the crowds started to thin a little and we were able to pick up the pace. Chris estimates that we ran our last mile in about 7 minutes, which I think I rarely did when I was running three season of track in high school! We were both very tired at the end but pushed each other and finished with a new PR of 54:28 for the 6.3 miles, which is an 8:46 minute mile pace. I can not believe how far I have come from my 10Ks last year and am very optimistic about the half marathon. I was even able to go out and run 6 miles yesterday which I would have never seen myself doing the day after a race. I am hoping to just stay healthy so I can reach my 1/2 marathon goal of finishing the race under 2 hours and 10 minutes. I guess now that I have said my goal out loud I need to stick to it and keep working hard!

I also have some other news, I reached my $3,600 Fundraising goal last week! This has been such an amazing journey! I am so happy that I have had the opportunity to get so many friends and family involved with the foundation and I hope that you all have learned a little more about what I am going through. I in turn have learned so much from my fellow teammates that for once I don't feel cursed to have this disease.

Week 10

After having a rough time last week with my Crohn's Disease, I am on the road to recovery. I was able to run 4.5 miles yesterday and 8 miles tonight. I ran with Cindy and Chris tonight and I thought that Chris was going to kill me as I picked the hilliest route in all of Arlington. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

My injections went well on Friday, the injections burn like hell. I had been warned, but it was still not what I expected. I am hoping I get used to it as I have more injections. The nurse did the first two and I was suppose to do the last two. I messed up on my first try but was able to do all of my injections. I will be giving myself one every two weeks, so I will get lots of chance to practice. So far the medicine has been helping as I am having minimal pain and have gone off of my diet and am now back to eating carbs. I am hoping this medicine continues to help as I am less then 2 months away from the 1/2 marathon!

Happy Hour Fundraiser = Success!

I am running out of the door in a few minutes to go learn how to inject my new medicine into me and then heading to New Jersey for the weekend. I have had a really busy week. I went to the doctors on Wednesday and we decided I needed to go on Humira right away. Humira is a TNF blocker that should hopefully but me in remission. The only bad thing is I have to give myself the injections using a needle every two weeks. I will let you know when I return how things go.

More importantly I wanted to thank everyone quickly for coming out last night for the happy hour! It was a huge success, beyond what I even imagined. By the end of the night I raised $565 DOLLARS! This puts me at 98% for achieving my goal!

Again I can not thank you all enough for coming and bring your friends! I am sorry I did not get a chance to talk to everyone. We might have to do another happy hour to celebrate my 1/2 marathon once it is over! Then I can spend more time with everyone!

Recommitment Day

Today was recommitment day in which you pledge to move forward with Team Challenge in training for the 1/2 marathon and fund raising. I am happy to report that I am recommitting and am so excited to be part of the first Washington, D.C. Team Challenge program.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I had a busy but wonderful time seeing family, friends and football (VT football to be exact). I might have outdone myself a little bit this weekend as I went into a flare. Since going off the steroid, even my strict diet has not been able to keep me from flaring, which basically means getting sharp pains throughout the day in my side and belly region. It is hard to run during a flare so I have not run since Thanksgiving. I did however do really well and shaved off 11 minutes from my previous Thanksgiving 10K last year and 3 minutes off my best 10K time from the spring!

I am hoping this short break from running will not hurt me too much. I go to the doctor on Wednesday and will be starting a new medicine shortly so hopefully that will help.