Fall Team Training

August 4, 2007. I went out with the TNT fall team today (the winter team hasn’t officially started training yet) and did 10 miles. They are a great bunch of people, and it is wonderful that they are active participants in the fight against blood cancers. With the Virginia Beach half marathon just four weeks away, it was good to get in some training. I am really looking forward to the Rock ‘N’ Roll half in Virginia Beach. It is one of several events that I am doing this year to celebrate being a five year cancer survivor.

Some of the others are / were: the Monument Avenue Ukrops 10K last spring; my annual hike to Rip Rap Hollow in Shenandoah National Park; hiking in New Hampshire; hiking to the North Carolina border and back from Back Bay Wildlife Refuge; and the culmination being the 2008 PF Chang's Arizona Marathon!

Here I am in the 58 (F) degree swimming hole at Rip Rap Hollow this past July. I try to do this hike every summer. In 2003, it was my first hike of over a mile or two since surviving cancer, and it always reminds me of being healthy enough to hike again, and how grateful I am for that. On this trail over the past few years, I've seen bear twice, a timber rattler - nearly stepped on him - and a box turtle. It is a beautiful 9.6 mile hike in Shenandoah National Park, the only downside being that the last 3 miles are all uphill while climbing out of the stream valley. So by the time you hike out of there, all hot and sweaty, the cool dip in Rip Rap Hollow is a distant memory.