So where am I running to now?

In the past year and a half, since about the time I first quit smoking, I've run two National 15k races, a marathon and several half-marathons, and countless local 5k and 5-mile races. As many of you may remember, I was a fundraising participant earlier this year while training for the Disney Marathon with the Team In Training program. After Disney, I decided to stay involved with the program and am now a marathon coach. Team In Training helps fundraising volunteers achieve their goal of completing an endurance event (marathon, half-marathon, triathlon or century ride) while raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to achieve its mission:

To cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.

I ran Disney this year in honor of a professional colleague and in memory of my wife's grandfather who passed away a few weeks before the event. She ran with me and also in memory of him. This year, I am running the Baltimore Marathon in honor of Brent, who at 10 months was diagnosed with Infant ALL. He is currently undergoing treatment in an Atlanta area hospital and his parents maintain a journal to keep their friends and family updated on his progress, which my wife sent to me recently. I admire their strength and the positive attitude they are able to muster through this whole ordeal and I realize that if Brent (and his parents) can stand 40 weeks of chemo treatments, well.. I can get out of bed at 4AM and go train to run a marathon for him.

Want to help?

While I'm not in a fundraising position this year, every member of the team I'm training is. I've added their names below, along with a link to their fundraising page, provided they have not yet met their minimum fundraising goal. Donations go directly toward their fundraising goals which benefit solely The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Many of their pages have regular updates where you can read about their progress. These folks realize the importance of the Society and its mission, and even a donation of $10 or $20 helps them reach their goals.

Whether you choose to donate or not, you may also use my website to send a message of encouragement to me or to my team. Any messages received for the team will be read before one of our training runs.