Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Wow, only three more days until Christmas. I am pretty sure that Christmas was my favorite holiday when I was a kid. Now, I still enjoy it, especially if family get-togethers are involved. I love Christmas music and the decorations, but I don’t like the commercialization of it. I think we just emphasize the wrong things this time of year. It just stresses people out: the crowded malls, the traffic jams, the tense faces, the attempt to buy the perfect gifts.

I’d rather see everyone relaxing a bit and appreciating what they have. If you have Christian beliefs, remember the reason for Christmas and what it really means. Whether or not you are of a Christian faith, use it as a time to be especially kind to others, and thankful for the good things and loved ones in your life. If you are warm, have a decent place to live in a safe area, are well-fed, are healthy, and are loved by someone or a pet this Christmas, then you really have it pretty good. I know I do. The little things that don’t always go our way are not so important compared to those things that are truly important.

So this year, have yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Do something nice for someone! And remember to be nice to yourself! Relax! Smile! Be grateful!

Workout Doldrums

If Tiger Woods had the same lack of success with women that I have had lately trying to find the time to work out, he’d be having an easier time with life right now than he is. Plus he wouldn’t be looking at a divorce and losing custody of his children. Of course, if I had the same success with working out that Tiger has with women, I’d be running sub-two thirty marathons, bench pressing 400 pounds, and dropping in 30 foot jump shots.

And my lack of success in finding time to work out is showing. Last week, I actually found an hour or so to walk five miles. I put in a brisk pace of about a 14:30 mile, which is a little slow for my normal (or at least old normal) walking pace. The five miles felt pretty good, although I felt a bit tired. But when I woke up the next day, my legs were sore, especially my hips. In fact my hips were sore about three days! From five miles! The same guy who did a half marathon, 65% of it running, just last April and felt fine the next day, and my hips were sore from just five miles!

This past Saturday, I was going to try for about six miles, walking only, with the Spring Walk Team for TNT. It was our annual Jingle Bell Run, but it was cancelled because of our big snow storm. That was a convenient excuse to take it easy all day, other than some heavy lifting with a snow shovel, but I was really disappointed not to get in a workout with the team. With all the snow, work obligations, and Christmas coming up, I don’t see much chance of speed walking or doing some running for the next week or so, but we will see. Even lunch time walks of a mile or two downtown are out for now because of all of the snow and ice.

I did get in a nice upper body weight workout tonight, but that was the first time in a week or so. Hopefully though, even with the paltry amount of exercise I am getting, Tiger is getting even that less action than that prowling around and chasing young women.

The New Year is rapidly approaching, the time when so many of us make resolutions that we don’t keep. But this is one time that I really do need to resolve to work out a lot more and lose those extra pounds going into the New Year. After all, at some point in 2010 I intend on doing Team in Training again, and I need to start getting back in shape for that. I always feel better when I work out regularly. I just need to get off my butt and make time to do it more. Of course, the New Year is still 10 days away so I guess I will stay on my butt a little longer. Tiger, on the other hand, had better not wait until the New Year to swear off chasing women.

Message from the Captain (#6)

Ahoy Mateys! ‘Tis your captain speaking once again, Mentor Captain Art that is!

Old time sailors say “any port in a storm”, and we sure had a storm this weekend, didn’t we? It was time to batten the hatches and drop anchor in a safe port, just ride out the storm. I think that’s what we all did. Except of course, the cycle team, who put chains on their bikes and hit the road at 6:30 AM yesterday, right, Susan?

The next two weeks will probably be fairly quiet with Team in Training. Please remind your mentees to let the coaches know if they won’t be at training the day after Christmas or the day after New Years. That is really important.

Other than that, people are probably too wrapped up in the holiday season to respond to a lot of fundraising activities. I know I get bombarded this time of year by requests for donations. Given it is the last chance to make a tax deductible donation for 2009, it would be good to at least send out an update to their email list. It is a good time for participants to remind potential donors of what they are doing, and their progress. And at the same time, why not remind them that their donation is fully tax deductible in 2009, even if put on a credit card by December 31 and not paid until 2010?

The other things participants might want to be working on over the holidays is getting donations for the silent auction, and planning fundraising activities for the New Year. In particular, I would strongly encourage the latter. This is the time to plan for the big push in 2010 that will get them to their goal. What have they done so far? What has worked? What hasn’t worked? Are there things that they have been thinking of trying but haven’t yet? Do they have specific activities lined up? Are there businesses they want to approach about fundraisers or donations? How much more do they have to raise before recommitment and how much does that translate to each week? What is the plan to raise that much each week? And I would ask the same two questions for the rest of the season – how much each week will they have to raise to hit their minimum? If you have mentees that are not raising enough to stay on pace, you might want to remind them that every week that goes by, it means raising that much more on average for the remaining weeks.

If you have the time in this busy time of year, offer to meet with your mentees to help them plan. The goal will be to start off 2010 with a firm plan for completing fundraising, rather than starting to think about all of this after New Years. It is a time of year where it is very easy to put all this aside, which means essentially losing two weeks of prime fundraising and planning time.

That is about it from the Captain’s Chair this week. Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, or a Happy Holiday of your choice. And of course, Happy belated Chanukah wishes as well. Let me know if you need help with anything.

GO TEAM!
Cap’n Art

The Jingle Bell Run That Wasn't

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

But inside, it's so delightful

And since we've no place to go

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Oh, but we did have some place to go! Our spring TNT team was going to have our annual jingle bell run today. It started snowing around 5PM yesterday, and by 7PM, we had a couple of inches of snow. The forecast didn't look so hot, so Coach Vicki cancelled training for the first time in six years. And it was a good thing, too - by this morning, I would guess we had 15 inches of snow. After six or seven years of hardly any snow, we now have had back to back winters with major snowfalls for this part of the world. Given that we historically average 14 inches of snow a year (with much less than that lately), a 15 inch plus storm is pretty big.

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Nothing to do but relax and enjoy the scenary today, and revel in Villanova's football championship last night. Here is what my neighborhood looked like today.

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Click here to read about last year's jingle bell run.

Congratulations, Wildcats!

Last night, the Villanova University Wildcats beat the University of Montana Grizzlies in the Division 1 FCS Football Championship, 23 - 21. It was an amazing game to watch between two great and classy teams. Montana had a great first half, Villanova a tremendous second half, and although either team could have won, it was Villanova's night at the end of a soaking wet game in Chattanooga.

In case you are wondering what FCS stands for, it is football championship subdivision (as opposed to FBS, which is football bowl subdivision). In other words, in the FCS, they actually determine the champion with a 16 team play-off as opposed to the nutty FBS system of selecting two teams and letting them play. Every other really good team in the FBS gets to play in a totally meaningless bowl game. Yes, the FBS has the bigger teams, more money, and the best players, but what kind of a crazy scheme to decide a champ is that? Fans of Texas Christian, Cincinatti, and Boise State, all undefeated this year but with no chance to even compete for a championship, might agree with me. Decide the champion with a champtionship series? What a novel idea! Hey, I know! Maybe they could try that in college basketball! We could call it "March Madness!" Naw, that would never work!

So Villanova (14-1) and Montana (undefeated coming in but now 14-1) did it the right way. They not only had to have great years to get in the field of 16, they each had to win three playoff games to get to the finals. As a Villanova alum, I am really proud of this championship and of the team. GO WILDCATS! V for Villanova, V for Victory.

And to Montana Grizzly fans - congratulations on another great year in the tremendous football tradition you have up in Missoula. I know it hurts to come up just a bit short, but I know that you are justifiably proud of your team. They had a tremendous year, and were three points away from an extraordinary one. You have great fans, a fantastic young coach, and a wonderful tradition. Good luck next year. I predict championships in your future.

Keeping the Faith!

About a month and a half ago, I blogged about being on the team “Faith’s Hope” for Light the Night, and how Faith, a local woman with stage four Hodgkin lymphoma, started this team to make a difference even while she was suffering through chemo, hospitals, and blood transfusions.
I got some great news today from Faith – despite her lengthy battle for most of 2009, despite having tumors throughout her lymphatic system, despite having cancer spread to her bone marrow, lungs, and spleen, Faith is now in remission. While she has a 35% chance for developing cancer again within five years, today she is cancer free!

As anyone who has had cancer knows, she and her doctors will need to be vigilant. There will be frequent checkups and CT scans – here, just drink three pints of this delicious chalky barium fluid, it tastes just like candy. You get an ache or a little pain, and you think “Hmmm, what could this be?” And usually the answer to that is “nothing.” She has a two thirds chance of having this cancer behind her for good.

As someone who just hit seven years remission a week ago, I think I know how happy Faith must feel today for getting that news. It is an amazing feeling. You become overwhelmed with gratitude for making it to remission, and for not having to get poisoned anymore. And you hope that in the ensuing months, you will gradually regain some degree of strength and stamina, and that the fog that seems to envelop your brain will burn off in time. And maybe, just maybe, you will eventually feel like your old self.

With an American dying from a blood cancer every 10 minutes, not enough people know that feeling of reaching remission, the holy grail for cancer patients. One of the goals of all of us doing TNT is that this ten minute number will increase because more people are hitting remission and less are dying. Research and a lot of work has made it that way for Hodgkin lymphoma – so now we just have to keep making progress on other cancers. Maybe in a few years, the time lapse will increase to a death every 15 minutes, maybe a few years after that it will be every 20 minutes. Maybe someday it will be one person an hour, or even less.

I wonder how many minutes go by every day on average for a patient to reach remission? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that today was Faith’s turn. Congratulations, Faith! Live each day! In 7 more years, it will be Faith talking about being seven years in remission, just like I was last week. You’ll get there! Keep the faith!

The Hundred Pound Feather; The Hundred Pound Truck

Believe it or not, upper body strength is fairly important for marathoners. And believe it or not even more, I think this is especially so for marathon walkers. For one thing, you are on the race course longer when you walk, and for every step, your arm opposite to your moving leg moves a little. It doesn’t move by itself – it is propelled by your arm and shoulder muscles. So the longer you are out there, the more times you move your arms. For another thing, I think there is a tendency for walkers to move their arms a bit further than runners do. Not the extremely exaggerated motion you see with some walkers where they swing their arms like they are reaching for the moon, of course. That is a waste of energy and muscle power. But you need to move your arms when you walk and run, and repeated tens of thousands of times as happens during a marathon, you do need some upper body strength.

I learned this a few years ago when I was training for walking the San Diego Marathon. I was near the end of a 21 mile day when I came to a wall that was about five feet high. It was either clamber over the wall, or retrace my steps and do an extra mile. I eyed the wall, and thought it would be easy to hoist myself over it. Wrong! I tried twice, and my arms were so tired I couldn’t lift myself even a foot!

When I trained for my first marathon, in 2005, I did a lot of upper body workouts. This is me, five years ago, doing just that. I would do three sets of 15 repetitions each with 140 pound weights on a military press machine. And I would do three different exercises with that machine, plus lots of work with 15 to 25 pound hand weights. Compared to a football player, that is not a lot of weight, but it was plenty for an endurance racer, and for a guy my age. I was pretty strong. Now and then, I would lift 100 pounds just to see how it felt, and it was like lifting a feather.

Fast forward to 2007. Some time around June, I partially tore my right rotator cuff, probably lifting 20 pound weights laterally. It was painful for a couple of years, and probably was finally healed only within the last six months or so. I did the 2008 Arizona Marathon with this injury, and I had to just about give up all upper body training. When I could resume it, the doctor stressed using low weights but a lot of repetitions. This was after some physical therapy with specific exercises, which I still do at times but not often or consistently enough. I started with 30 pounds and worked my way up to 70, which felt like too much for the number of repetitions I was doing. So a couple of months ago, I backed down to 50 pounds, doing 50 reps for those same three exercises.

A few weeks ago, just for grins, I tried 100 pounds. That weight, the exact weight that felt like a feather five years ago, now felt like a truck! Okay, not exactly like a feather or a truck, but you get the idea. It felt very heavy, and it required real effort to lift it. Five years ago, it was effortless. So while I will stick with the lower weights and more reps, I am thinking of maybe every three workouts of doing more weight and fewer reps. Maybe that will build strength and not just endurance. Are any of you experts on strength training? I’d love to hear ideas.

I wonder if I will ever get back to 140 pounds, and if 100 pounds will ever feel like a feather again? Maybe not, but I hope I at least get to the point where it doesn’t feel like a truck.

Hold that Line! Hold that Line!

I stepped on the scale in the bank lobby the other day, and watched the dial jump to the right. “What the hell? 181 pounds? That’s it! I am holding the line,” I said. I heard the faint tee-heeing of laughter, but from where? I glanced around the bank lobby. A few customers lined up at the ATM machine a short distance away, but they looked totally serious. A security guard, pistol strapped to his waist, sat across the lobby. He looked like he had never laughed in his life.

I heard faint, high pitched peals of laughter again. I stared at the face of scale. No way! Was the laughter coming from the scale? To test my ridiculous theory, I said “There is no way I am gaining another pound!” The laughter got louder, and was clearly coming from the scale! “OK, scale, what is up with that?” The scale stopped laughing, and said “Oh, that’s rich! You’re not gaining another pound? Check your calendar. Do you know what time of year it is?”

“It doesn’t matter what time of year it is! I have gained eight pounds since running the Country Music Half-Marathon last April, and that is enough. I am holding the line!” (“I can’t believe I am talking to a scale in a public place,” I thought to myself.)

“Yeah, and I’m Santa Claus,” the scale said, laughing at its own joke. “You would not believe how many people say that to me at this time of year. But they forget about holiday parties, Christmas cookies, eggnog, family get-togethers, and pumpkin pie. How much pumpkin pie did you have recently?”

“Quite a bit, actually. That’s one of the many reasons I have gained this weight. But enough is enough. I am stopping this weight gain, and will start to reverse it,” I said. I thought of all of the extra deserts lately, munching on cookies or candy people bring into work, Thanksgiving dinner, a drink here and there, a few more meals at restaurants recently – often with a tempting desert. It all just adds up, an ounce or two at a time. I thought of how much more tightly my pants have been fitting. Jeans that were very comfortable a few months ago were now quite snug. Clearly, either some practical jokester is swapping my pants out in the middle of the night, or I have gained not just weight but inches. As a reflex to this thought, I sucked in my stomach.

“That won’t help,” the scale said. “Suck in your stomach or not, you still weigh 181 pounds.” Resigned, I relaxed my stomach. Suddenly, the button on my pants flew off, striking the bank window like a rifle shot. A customer screamed, several of them started to go to the floor, and the guard started to pull out his revolver. He quickly realized what had happened and began laughing. “Great,” I thought to myself. “He has a sense of humor after all.”

Around this time, several of the bank’s customers had noted that I was talking to no one in particular, looked at my ear to see if I had a Blue Tooth, and seeing none, began to look a bit nervous. So I stepped off the scale and headed outside. Damn! The last time I weighed myself I was around 178 or 179, and I resolved to get down to 176 or so for my class reunion. So much for that! It is now time to get serious about this – to stop eating as much - Christmas or not – and to start working out again. Mr. Scale, next time you see me, I will have the last laugh. I resolve not to go over 181 by the first of the year. I will hold the line, and ultimately, I will lose the extra weight. I hitched my belt tight to make up for the missing button, and got back to work. Hey, who brought the lemon poppy-seed cake in? Well, one piece won’t hurt….

Message from the Captain (#5)

Ahoy Mateys! This is your captain speaking! Furl the topsails! Reef the mainsails! Set the sea anchors! Shiver me timbers! This weather has been so cold and wet that it makes one want to curl up in the fo’castle sipping an extra ration of grog! But my guess is that at least a few of you and your mentees were out training today in this mess. It seems like for the last month or so, we have had more that our fair share of cold rain.

Recommitment for our first port of call, The Big Easy, is this Friday. So it is really important to touch base with your mentees (if any) for this race and see how they are doing. Recommitment is a big decision for every participant, but one that one each of them can make. You can provide information, encouragement, ideas, and support, but you can’t make the decision for them. Let me know if I can help in any way.

We’ll be having a breakfast after training Saturday for the run and walk teams. Triathlon and cycle team members are free to join us. Coach Vicki will have the best idea when training should end, and thus when people will be going to breakfast. Ask your mentees if they are going to join us. We will need a reasonable head count. I am proposing Kitchen 64 up Boulevard, and would like to see if they can set a few tables aside, ergo, the head count.

After a month of so of the spring season, you should start to be able to separate your mentees into two major groups: those you feel are going to do just fine with fundraising and those you have concerns about. For the next week or so, I would concentrate my efforts on the latter group. What concerns do you have about them? Do they have a plan, and if so, where are they falling short? Are you seeing signs that they are struggling, or even worse, just not doing any fundraising? Are any of them appearing to avoid you? This would be a good time to reach out by phone or in person to meet with anyone that you are concerned about. If they seem stymied, help them pick one fundraising method that they want to try, and motivate them to do that one well. Could be letters, could be their webpage and emails, could be specific fund raisers. It could even be getting amazing items for the silent auction next month, although it would be risky to put all one’s eggs in that basket, since the results won’t be known for another month.

At the same time, don’t ignore your other mentees. While the one’s you are behind on fundraising need the most attention, every participant needs some TLC. Maybe they are fine with their fundraising, but just want to discuss the TNT experience with someone who has been there. Or maybe they have gotten off to a great start, but are not sure what to do next. The great thing about being a mentor is that you have been there before, and maybe experienced or felt some of the things that they are feeling or experiencing. Sometimes what a participant needs most is a smile and a pat on the back, and someone who can relate to their concern.

I am always looking for mission moments to remind me of how important what we are doing is. This week, a chance encounter at work was the source of my inspiration. I wrote about it here:

http://racn4acure.blogspot.com/2009/12/who-do-you-know-with-leukemia.html

Speaking of mission moments, at the marathon training Saturday I have arranged for Faith Eury to come out and tell us about her experience with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma. She just finished chemo a month ago, and has had a really tough go of it, with a lot of time in the hospital.

Let me know if you need help, or have concerns. You know how to reach me so if you need me, get in touch!

GO TEAM!
Cap’n Art

“Who Do You Know With Leukemia?”

The question came as a bit of a surprise. I was helping to orient a new employee this morning, and we were at my desk signing some paperwork. I left for a minute to get some information, and when I returned, he asked me that question. I guess I looked puzzled for a minute, and he pointed to my Leukemia and Lymphoma Society mug on my desk.

“Actually, I know a number of people who have survived leukemia and other blood cancers,” I said. “That includes myself. I survived lymphoma seven years ago.”

“You’re kidding!” he exclaimed. “My mother died from lymphoma!” I expressed my sympathy, and we chatted a bit about it.

His mother was 52 when she died about seven or eight years ago, just a couple of years older than I was at the time of my diagnosis. She had been ill for a while, and they just kept thinking it was the flu, or something like that. They finally figured it out in May of that year, and by July, she was dead. I guess she never really had a chance.

I reflected again on my amazing good fortune. Why would I not only survive, but return to full health, while this woman died? It is just the luck of the draw, I guess. I had something that could be treated, she did not. I could survive the chemo, barely at times it seemed, but survive it I did all the same. She either could not survive the treatment or the disease, one or the other. Two months is a quick period of time for someone to die after diagnosis.

I thought of all of the things I would have missed had I died that July. My diagnosis was also in May – maybe even the same May. It is a pretty long list of amazing things that I have gotten to experience in my life since that time, and I would have hated to have missed any of them. I was not ready to die at that point, and actually am not at this point either, should anyone ask.

This brief conversation was one more example of how many people are affected by blood cancers. And it was one more example of the loss that those left behind feel as a result. It is easy for people to hear about people surviving cancer and assume that survival is a given, and that the cancer problem has a solution. Sadly, that is far from true.