Our road to Vancouver, BC, started out a bit differently than we had originally (back in October) had expected, geez, the trip to Vancouver is less than two hours a way for us, it was a great plan. Shortly thereafter one of our good friends sent great news that he was getting married April 30th, in Portland. We obviously could not miss the wedding, so, we set out to conquer our long weekend in the car. Three hours to Portland on Thursday afternoon, three hours back to Seattle on Saturday morning and then the final two hour leg to Vancouver Saturday afternoon. We made it. Jackson and Rick both in good spirits.
(My gear)Once we got into Vancouver, we had to race to the expo to get my race bib and timing chip. We cut it close! They were seemingly very organized so it wasn't as tedious of a process as I thought it would be. Once we got back, I did what the coaches had recommended. I laid out all of my gear. As you can see above, this included my Team in Training journey that garnered the names of many people who had truly inspired me and or kept me moving along the way. All of whom have had, fought, and/or lost their battle with cancer. Torgi, Doreen, Norma, Ashley, and little Ryan.
After getting everything all set, I parted way with my boys, and headed to our "Inspiration Dinner." One of the local Honored Teammates gave an incredible speech about his journey with cancer. His ability to use humor to help us all understand his ordeal was amazing. One thing from his speech still resonates deeply. He said: "There are a few things you never want to say to your mother. (he listed a few, all of which got the audience laughing) Mom, I have cancer." His ability to share insight that we could all relate to was perfect. His speech was truly inspirational and his closing message to us was that through the research that the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has done with the money we have raised, he was given chemo, and a new medication that has eradicated the cancer cells from his body. The cancer he had went from a very small survival rate to 90%. He is in remission and successfully ran a Marathon the following day.
(All inspired and ready to go, the fives are for our run five, walk five)At the end of dinner, I was handed a card with ribbons attached to it. The note said: I have recently relapsed with NHL (Non-Hodkins Lymphoma), and am here today running for my six wonderful kids. Thank you for your help, Doreen. Then on six ribbons, where her six kids' names. Let me start the rest of this memory with, Doreen is amazing. She was a member of our Spring Training team from day one. She is fast. She is in shape. You would never look at her and think, she has cancer. And in fact, she didn't when we started. She had been in remission for several years. However, she came to practice two weeks prior our race, and gave us the heart wrenching news. It was back. She started chemo the week prior to our race (dropping nearly 10 pounds because of her inability to keep any food down). But she looked amazing. Her family right at her side she came to Vancouver and ran the half-marathon in 2 hours and 20 minutes. I told you, Amazing. Oh yah, out of the nearly 300 people there with Team in Training, Doreen raised over $10,000, taking the fifth most raised in the whole group.
After a quick team meeting for one last pep talk and logistics check, we walked back to our hotel and headed to bed early. 5 am was coming quick!
More to come, thanks for following,
Stephanie
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