What a ride!!

It's been 4 days since the Marathon, but I am still constantly thinking about it. What an amazing experience it has been!

When I first ran the Boston Marathon for Dana-Farber in 2014, I knew it would be special, in part because of the determination to reclaim Patriots' Day as a joyous occasion after the tragedy in 2013, and also because I was running in memory of 3 friends who had died of cancer. As described in the newly released film "Boston: The Documentary", the 2014 race was "epic".

This year, having decided to run again in memory of Dr. Patricia Frost-Fitch, one of my earliest mentors in the field of veterinary dentistry, I was not sure what to expect. As I mentioned in my last post, the training was more difficult for me this time, and I have said to more than one person "This is definitely going to be my last marathon". However, my experience in Boston this year makes it likely that I will return. The staff and volunteers for Dana-Farber, the teammates running in tribute to spouses, children or parents who have died of cancer, and the unceasing encouragement from a million spectators made Monday an unforgettable day. I am still basking in the post-Marathon glow!

With the help of over 80 donors, I raised $10,440 for the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Cancer Research. One of the most special things about running for Dana-Farber is knowing that the work we are doing actually saves lives. For example, immunotherapy cancer drugs like ipilimumab and nivolumab were developed based on research done by Barr investigators at Dana-Farber. Hearing "Thank you, Dana-Farber!" throughout the course was humbling and helped keep me focused on the finish line.
 
At mile 25 at Kenmore Square, I was having a tough time and was walking. One of the course photographers captured this moment, and even though I initially didn't want to post it, because it's not a happy photo, I am putting it up because it reminds me of what happened right after this photo was taken. I was pretty close to the side of the road. A Boston Police officer, who was on the side of the road, in front of the barriers for crowd control, saw me looking like this and walked over to me. She took my arm, said, "Come on. Let's go" and started jogging. I started jogging again, and the crowd let out a cheer so loud it felt like the Patriots had just performed their miracle SuperBowl comeback again. She ran with me a few steps and then let me go on so she could return to her post. What a moment! The boost I got from that kept me going to the finish.

It was my slowest Marathon (more than 20 minutes slower than my fastest - which is still not fast!) but probably my favorite in terms of how I felt at the end. You can see it on my face as I cross the finish line.

So, even though the training is somewhat awful and the fundraising can be stressful, I hope to be back on the team for 2018. The excitement of being in Boston on Marathon weekend, the camaraderie of the DFMC team, the knowledge that we are running for a purpose larger than ourselves, the memory of loved ones lost, the support of the volunteers, the encouragement of the spectators, and the feeling after crossing the finish line: The intensity of all of these feelings makes the difficulties of training and fundraising worthwhile! 
 
It has been said that happiness lies in the joy of achievement (paraphrasing Franklin D. Roosevelt), and I am certainly a living example of that right now! Thank you for sharing this journey with me!


 

I'm leaving on a jet plane....

It's Wednesday, April 12, just 5 days until the Boston Marathon. All the training is done (my husband snapped a photo of me coming in from my last run at home this morning), I'm really close to reaching my $10,000 fundraising goal (please visit http://rundfmc.org/2017/milinda to help me get there!!), and my family and I are currently waiting at SFO to board the plane to Boston.

I've made "In Honor Of" cards for several of the people in whose honor I am running. (A few of them are shown below.) These will be displayed at the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team pasta party on Sunday, April 16. This was a very emotional event last time I ran for Dana-Farber (in 2014), and I am happy to be bringing my Mom with me this year.

We're getting to Boston a few days early (flights were much more affordable!) and I'm looking forward to just relaxing in the hotel in Copley Square, getting to the Expo before the weekend crowds arrive, and hopefully seeing some old friends. We arrive in the wee small hours of Thursday morning, and I will write another blog post on Thursday or Friday evening.

It has not been easy this time around; training has been harder on my body, I've found it more difficult to put in the hours of running, and I have said to more than one person "I'm looking forward to it being over!" and "This is definitely going to be my last marathon!" Thanks for following my journey and for your support and encouragement!

Just 10 more days!!

A week ago, I was in Indiana, for my father-in-law's memorial service. Although I woke up at 7:45am, my body (and my Garmin!) still thought it was 4:45am! Nevertheless, I set out for my last long run before the Marathon.

As I set out, I passed the cattle ranch that my in-laws' house backs up to, and it was apparent that joggers are a pretty rare site along Highway 17, because the steers just stared at me as I ran by. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see three white faces turned my way.

You can also get a sense of the weather. Almost cold enough to snow, which I would have welcomed, but as it was, I was pelted by tiny, cold raindrops as I started out. But then the rain let up, and the remaining 19 miles were misty but not drizzly. It would have been gorgeous had the sky been blue, but even with the grey, I enjoyed the scenery, which included a couple of small lakes, an old cemetery with graves mostly from WWI, and a farmhouse built in 1876.

My turn-around was at Culver Academies (where Dierks Bentley, one of my favorite country singers, spent a short time as a teenager), and whose campus abuts a huge lake, Lake Maxinkuckee.

I was fortunate to have support from my husband and brother-in-law, who met me in Culver to refill my water bottle and see if I needed a change of clothes before the turn-around to head back to Plymouth. I didn't need a change of clothes then, but about 5 miles later, I almost peed my pants when a large pit bull and 2 shepherd mixes came running out of a barn, barking at me and not looking too friendly. I am not normally afraid of dogs, but when you're running and they're chasing you, it's a bit disconcerting! I yelled "NO!" at them, and the shepherds hung back but the pibble kept coming towards me, so I finally squirted him with my water bottle and he tucked his tail and ran home. In another situation, I probably would have stopped and petted them, but being alone on a country road with no one in sight, I thought about poor Diane Whipple and did not want to end up in a bloody heap on the side of the road. So that gave me an adrenaline rush, which made my 3 remaining miles pretty easy. (Maybe I need someone to scare the pee out of me at mile 22 in Boston next week to make those last 4 miles easier!)

So, my second 20 miler went much better than my first, which took me more than 15 minutes longer (thanks to an 1100 ft elevation gain!).


When I got back to my mother-in-law's house, I checked my donation report, and was thrilled to see that I was very close to the $8000 fundraising mark. (After raising $8K, DFMC team members are considered "Pacesetters", and we get a special patch to wear on our race singlets.) I expressed my excitement to my brother-in-law, and after I'd showered and changed, he surprised me with a donation to bring me to that 8K level. What a great reward after my last long run!

The next 10 days will see just a few short runs, and we fly to Boston on Wednesday, 4/12. The whole family will be doing the BAA 5K on Saturday 4/15, which will be pretty low-key if I run it with Ella. Currently, the forecast calls for rain on Marathon Monday, but that could change (it's New England - if you don't like the weather, wait a minute!).

Three weeks until Race Day!

This week represented the peak of my training, with a total of 43.33 miles logged for the week, and just under 150 miles for the month of March so far.

Yesterday, while many of my Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge teammates were braving snowy roads to run 20-22 miles, I was blessed to be running in perfect weather here in Marin County.

I ran from my house in Larkspur over to China Camp State Park (picking up a running buddy on the way, so I had great company for miles 7-14!) and back, as you can see from the map below.

It was probably a little silly to include a giant hill on my route (in both directions!), which slowed me down considerably, but I was happy to have taken it easy enough on that 20 miler to be able to run 5 more miles today. Thumbs up because now it's taper time! "The hay is in the barn," as team coach Jack Fultz likes to say, and the next 3 weeks leading up to the race will see a decrease in the number of weekly miles I run.

Over the next two weeks I'll be making Honor Cards for display at the DFMC Pasta Party the night before the race. This is one of my favorite parts of running for DFMC - learning about the people who inspired donations. Those of you who donated in honor or in memory of a loved one should soon receive an e-mail from me, requesting a photo for the Honor Card. Here's an example for my lovely neighbor Verna, who passed away in 2010 after a nearly 5-year battle with breast cancer.

It has been a privilege hearing your stories, and I will carry these honorees in my heart as I run on April 17.

Every penny of your contribution goes directly to investigators on the leading edge of cancer research, through the Claudia Adams Barr Program for Innovative Basic Cancer Research. For example, the Kinome Project, with initial Claudia Adams Barr Program funding in 1997, discovered mutations in a family of genes called “kinases” that prevent cell growth stimulators from being turned off, resulting in cancer cells that replicate uncontrollably. These discoveries by William Sellers, MD, and his colleagues led directly to the development of targeted drugs used by patients worldwide for the treatment of multiple cancers, including lung cancer, leukemia, and melanoma. Examples include Tarceva and Vemurafenib, which improve survival in subsets of people with lung cancer and melanoma, respectively. This work has become the model for personalized medicine in cancer treatment and is widely credited for helping transform the approach that pharmaceutical companies use for drug development.

If you have not yet donated and would like to do so, please visit http://rundfmc.org/2017/milinda . Every dollar and every mile brings us one step closer to the ultimate finish line: a world without cancer.

38 days and $3800 to go!

Thanks to an e-mail campaign I sent earlier this week and a generous donation from my Mom & bonus dad (thanks, Mom & Barry!), I am more than halfway to my goal of raising $10,000 for Dana-Farber! In a funny coincidence, I have $3800 to go, and there are 38 days until the Marathon.

Training is going well; I logged 36.7 miles last week, and am on track to log 37-38 miles this week. Last weekend I ran in China Camp State Park again, and got caught in a hail storm. It was odd because the skies looked clear in one direction.

But less than 20 minutes after I took that photo, the wind picked up and it started hailing, so I snapped a selfie (but you can't see the hail anyway; it was pretty tiny).

I'm wearing the new DFMC team jacket; it's the same style as the bright yellow-green one I have from 2014 (the sleeves come off to turn it into a vest), and I really like the color.

My team singlet arrived this week, along with the honor cards that will be displayed at the DFMC banquet the night before the race. Here is the honor card my girls and I made for my dear friend Dana in 2014:

If you donated in honor of someone, please e-mail me a photo for me to create an honor card for this year's banquet. Your stories inspire me to keep working harder, both when I'm running and when I'm trying to raise more funds for the research that will lead to treatments which might keep future families from losing their loved ones to cancer.

I will be wearing this singlet with pride on April 17. If you or someone you know would like to make a donation to Dana-Farber, please visit http://www.rundfmc.org/2017/milinda.
All team members pay their own race registration and travel fees, so 100% of funds raised go the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. This program is responsible for funding research that has led to new treatments such as Provenge for prostate cancer and ipilimumab for melanoma.

An important area of cancer research asks why the human body’s defense systems do not always attack and destroy tumors as they form. Funded by the Claudia Adams Barr Program in 1998, Glenn Dranoff, MD, discovered complex regulatory pathways in the human immune system that cancers exploit in order to escape destruction. Reversal of these effects can lead to the development of vaccines against cancer, like Provenge for prostate cancer. This research has also enabled the development of immune-activating drugs such as ipilimumab, which showed striking effects in melanoma in a trial led by Dana-Farber scientists and is now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment.

With federal funding for medical research in jeopardy, it is more important than ever that we contribute to organizations doing this critically important work. Together, we are working toward the ultimate finish line: a world without cancer.

Ten weeks to the Boston Marathon!

Yesterday I ran my 20th half marathon! The Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon is a gorgeous course through Golden Gate Park and along Ocean Beach. Back in February 2009, this race was my very first half marathon. I ran it in 2 hours 10 minutes back then, and yesterday my time was 2:01:23. Not my personal best Half time, but the best I've done since the Healdsburg Half Marathon in October 2015, when I ran 1:59:39, so I'm happy with it. Didn't bring my phone with me on the course, but snapped a selfie at Land's End after the race.

 
It's hard to believe that the Boston Marathon is 10 weeks from today! I spent last weekend in Boston, and had the pleasure of meeting several of my DFMC teammates, as well as running part of the course a few times. It was especially fun to run the Newton hills, and to see so many other charity teams out training together! I wish I could train on the course every weekend, like many of my teammates. Knowing a course well makes it easier to run, and I would be less likely to fall prey to the "I can't do it!" thoughts that creep in around mile 22.

One of the top highlights of my weekend in Boston was attending a fundraising party for one of my teammates, Maria (in red). I had debated going, because the train schedule was less than ideal, and am so glad I decided to take an Uber there (thanks to the suggestion of Emily, 2nd from the right in this photo!). I met some new teammates, some of whom I follow on Strava, like Maria, and got to spend more time chatting with Mike (on my left in the photo), with whom I'd run that morning. And some friends of teammate Stephanie (in white) gave me a ride back to the city after the party, for which I was very grateful.

Maria had some great ideas at her party, and if I can pull something similar together within the next month, it could make a big impact on my fundraising. So far I've reached a little over 1/3 of my $10,000 fundraising goal. It's been tougher this time around, in part because the first time I ran for DFMC, I was running in memory of 3 very special friends, and many of their friends and family members contributed in their honor. If I take Maria's lead and try to get prizes donated by local businesses, then have a raffle, that might be a fun way to get closer to that $10,000 goal. 

The Dana Farber Marathon Challenge Team goal is $5 million. Dana-Farber is a world leader in research leading to new treatments for cancer. The graphic below demonstrates their impact.

Unlike some other programs, 100% of donations to DFMC go to fund research. Runners pay all their own race entry fees and travel expenses. To help me reach my $10,000 fundraising goal, please donate here: http://www.runDFMC.org/2017/milinda.  I'd really appreciate your help!

Finally back on the trails!

The flu knocked me out after Christmas, but after 2 weeks of less than 7 miles per week, I was happily able to put in 25 miles this week. Most of it was on the treadmill at Mt. Tam Racquet Club, but yesterday I ran 8.25 miles in one of my favorite places, China Camp State Park. It was my first run outdoors in almost 3 weeks! The weather was cold but gorgeous.

Seeing wildlife is always a highlight of running in Marin. I don't always take my phone with me, but when I do, it's worth a few brief interruptions of my run to snap some photos. If you can't take a moment to enjoy your surroundings, why run outside at all??