My first race with Team in Training

My first race with Team in Training was the Bermuda half marathon in January of 1998. Here I am, after the race, cold and wet after going through two huge rain storms (it REALLY rains in Bermuda, crazy monsoon rains- then it's bright and sunny right afterward like it never began) and absolutely thrilled that I was able to complete the race!

Let me backtrack to how I had started with Team in Training. I had begun volunteering with the Leukemia Society in 1995 when I graduated college, putting on special events to fundraise in memory of my dad. Team in Training was a relatively new program and the people that had done the marathon through them were VERY enthusiastic and their pride in doing the event was infectious. They kept asking me to do it, and my answer was pretty much what you would expect- absolutely not, there's noooo wayyyy I could ever do a marathon, what are you crazy??? I had run as a teenager, actually as a way to cope with my father's dying, but hadn't since and was very out of shape.

Fast forward two years later to 1997. I was living in Hoboken and working in New York City and started working out regularly. While I was on the stairmaster I read an article in Health Magazine about Team in Training and thought, that's it, that's my calling. So I RAN home four blocks. listening to Prince on my walkman, and thought, hey, I can run again! I called the Leukemia Society the next day and signed up over the phone for the next marathon they were fundraising for, the Dublin marathon, even though it was in 3 months. Okay, I hear you laughing. It was very impulsive and I can tell you I had NO IDEA what I was in for. If I really did have a clue just HOW much work was in front of me I might not have done it, but at the same time it was also one of the best things that have ever happened to me.

I wrote a letter to my friends and family and posted my letter to my then publishing company's intranet server. To say the support I had was overwhelming is an enormous understatement. I heard stories from so many people telling me how cancer and leukemia had personally affected them. I met many people I might not have met, and realized that fundraising and training for a cause was really bigger then myself. I no longer felt like it was just "me", but felt like I was a vehicle for spreading the word about the Leukemia society.

Training was long and repetitive and rigorous. I trained with the running club in Hoboken, the Hoboken Harriers, and would get up at 5:30 am to run along the Hudson river before work. Unfortunately before the Dublin race I got a hairline fracture in my foot, and wasn't able to train for a month while it healed. So I was able to transfer to the next marathon, which was Bermuda. And then I sprained my left ankle three weeks before that race, running on a sidewalk but after training for 6 months I decided to do the race anyway, albeit as a half marathon instead of a full marathon. And then I broke my toe on a piece of exercise equipment a week before the event (!!!). So I figured I would go to the event and just do how ever long I could do and then stop when my toe and ankle started acting up.

The night before the race Team in Training had a huge spaghetti party and told us the story of how the marathon came to being...that there was a runner, Phidippedes, that ran 26 miles to Athens to tell them that the war was over (and then died of exhaustion). He compared us as marathoners to messengers- that we are spreading the word that someday there WILL be a cure to Leukemia.

The day of the race, January 18, 1998, was BEAUTIFUL. I think it was 70 degrees and sunny and the water looked like someone dropped turquoise food dye in there. It was quite the change from training during the winter in New York! I started walking...and walking...more like hobbling, expecting to only do a mile. People were cheering me on, asking me if I was alright, laughing with me because I was limping in the first mile. Since I knew I really wasn't competing, I decided to just enjoy the scenery as I walked and thought of my dad and the girl with leukemia that I was limping in honor of, Chelsea, and thought, well, this pain I'm having in my ankle and toe is nothing compared to chemotherapy. And what a way to see the island! I walked along the breathtaking coastline and manicured lawns and proper people (who said, hey, are you okay, come inside and have some tea) and then the not-so-rich area with the Rastifarians (who said hey, sweetheart, come in the house, forget this marathon, we'll give you a backrub). After a while my toe went completely numb and miraculously I went around the whole island and completed 13.1 miles! I came in 310 and finished in 3:49:07- I didn't come in dead last!