Team in Training Practice #1

As I wrote about in an earlier post, a couple of weeks ago I decided to take on one of the biggest challenges of my life: A MARATHON! I am excited and nervous about it all at the same time. Thanks to Team in Training, I have coaches, mentors, and a group of men and women FRIENDS that are going to help prepare me both mentally and physically for the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon on November 15, 2009 in San Antonio. Today was our first practice at a park not too far from my house that I usually run at. The morning started off a little shaky for me because when my alarm went off this morning at 5:00 AM (yes, I know this is early but with the Texas heat if you don't get it done early, it probably won't happen) I hit the snooze button. Twenty minutes later I jumped out of bed, ran around getting dressed and headed out. After some stretching, prayer, and words of inspiration we were off for our timed 3 miles. Although I was dragging a little bit I still finished right under 30 minutes. I had the pleasure of meeting a few other ladies whom I've already exchanged phone numbers with and know we will be running buddies soon. I'm looking forward to our next practices and can't wait to see the person this experience will turn me into! If you'd like to know more about Team in Training and help us save lives visit my page at http://pages.teamintraining.org/stx/rnrsa09/jlopeztvof. I've added a button to my sidebar that will get you there too! Here are some amazing facts I've learned over the last week:
1. More than 823,000 Americans have leukemia, Hodgkin or non-Hodgkin lymphoma or myeloma.
2. Every five minutes, someone new is diagnosed with blood cancer. Every 10 minutes, someone dies.
3. Research funded by LLS has led or contributed to advances such as chemotherapy, bone marrow and stem cell transplantation and new, targeted oral therapies such as Gleevec®.
4. Childhood leukemia survival rate is up from 4% in 1960s to over 80% over the last 40 years.

There's lost more, but I'll share them with you later.

P.S. If anyone has some ideas for fundraising PLEASE let me know!