Meet Gracie

Our team, the Seattle Marathon and Half Marathon runners, are running in honor of Gracie Theis. She lives here in the Twin Cities area and she's four years old. Grace was diagnosed with Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a rapid growing cancer of the bone marrow and blood in June of 2006. Grace also has Down's Syndrome. Gracie loves to sing, dance and read books. Her family includes her Dad - Kevin, Mom – Tami, Sister - Amber (age 9), Brother – Cody (age 7), dogs – Chelsea, Duke & Koda, and cats – Sami, Roxi & Snow. On January 9th of this year, Grace celebrated her 2nd anniversary of remission! Here's a link to Gracie's Caring Bridge website to find out more about her.

We'll be training our hearts out in honor of Gracie and so many others who have battled these brutal cancers. As I think about the training schedule my team is running now, as tough as it is, it pales in comparison to what Gracie and others just like her have been through!

To donate, please click this link: http://pages.teamintraining.org/mn/rnrseatl09/rmweaver

Team in Training

http://pages.teamintraining.org/mn/rnrseatl09/rmweaver

Check back here often - I'll be updating this blog with progress on my training and my fundraising efforts. Thanks so much! Please believe me when I say that I can't do this without you!!

Yep - it's crazy

I've decided to go for it. I'm going to run a half marathon. No, I don't like running, but there's a story ... Last summer, out of nowhere I ran all the way around the Lake of the Isles here in Minneapolis. Me, the girl who was really sure that she was literally, physically allergic to running. The girl who couldn't run more than 10 minutes on the treadmill ran all the way around the lake.

From that point on, morbid curiosity has kept me going. Can I do that again? What if I wanted to go a little further this time? Could I do that? And I did. I kept going. I did my first 5K in October of last year (which is captured in the picture at the top of this blog). My only goal was to finish and to run the whole way. It took Europe's "Final Countdown" blasting in the iPod to carry me over the finish line, but I did it! Here's me crossing the finish line:



The next 5K I ran was an altogether different experience. Sean and I ran the Reindeer Run here in Minneapolis in early December. We were not expecting the sheer number of people who turned out, especially since it was about 10 degrees with a windchill of -1. With those conditions, I thought we'd be somewhat alone but NO! The crazy Minnesotans live for this stuff. The news stations estimated that 4000 people ran the race that day and I ran the race next to a guy dressed up as a Christmas present. It truly doesn't get any better than this:


So, no, I don't like running but I do have to admit that I feel pretty bad ass when I get done. I still can't quite believe that I've been able to do this so far. After running the Reindeer Run, I decided to set a stretch goal for myself - to run a half marathon. I didn't think I'd be doing this so soon, but I came across a great opportunity and now I'm planning to run it in June.

I have to make a phone call to commit tomorrow - and I'll post more info then. Until then, I'll ponder the training plan ...