Monday, August 11, 2008

Cord Blood Donation

I have a friend, Paige, who is due to have her first child soon. We're excited about this for two reasons. First, Paige is a great person and deserves every blessing. She's gonna be a great mom. Second, she's generously going through the cord donor process. Paige will be keeping me updated, and I'll be doing the same in this little corner of the universe. I know PJ will be keeping tabs in Rhode Island ... she's a cord blood transplantee. I'm guessing we'll all learn something.

I'm now in Week 11 of training. Sunday's and Monday's post-run soreness was as expected. I didn't feel rested and spry enough this morning to run, so I postponed until tonight, with the plan to run five fairly easy miles. The "problem" was I had some new shoes and the weather continues to be phenomenal for this time of year.

Mile one was a 9:00/mile, and my soreness began to fade. What the heck, I figured ... let's get this party started. Miles two and three were slightly downhill in the 8:20/mile range. Miles four and five were slightly uphill, but I held a good pace. Final time: 43:29; final pace: 8:41/mile. Not a yabba dabba doo, but a good tempo run.

OK, I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm intrigued by running the full marathon in October. The Team in Training marathoners continue to lobby me to join them. I want to a run 26.2 for a few reasons. "I can" sounds so much better than "I can't." I've been inspired by my TNT group, and I've witnessed a lot of courage lately from people I love. I want to prove I can do it to honor people who are gutting it out in different ways and to test myself. My dilemma is I don't want to ruin my planned time with Dori after the race. We'll be celebrating her bone marrow transplant and our 14th anniversary while we're in San Francisco.

While I play mental volleyball, I plan to run with the marathoners a few more weeks as they increase their mileage. Let's see what I think after a 16 or 18 miler.

4 comments:

PJ said...

You can!!!

Paige Clancy said...

Just do it.

Nike or not, really: Just do it.

What better way to celebrate!?

It doesn't hurt to try. (You could always stop if you had to for some reason.) And with your training, you are in a position to run a great marathon. Stop the volleyball match and just focus on the finish line.

Anonymous said...

I've been looking into the cord blood donation here, in TN, and it can be done, but it's not as easy as it is in other states. If Paige needs help, feel free to send her my way. I was a cord blood recipient as well and I am really trying to make it more high-profile here, in Nashville.

On August 31, I'll be walking/running the 10K human race. If I can do that, I KNOW you can do the marathon and I'll be there to cheer you on when you do.

Lots of Love and Luck.
Tammy

Jim said...

Tammy,

I'm so proud of you for taking on the 10K and for raising awareness on cord blood donations. You are awesome.

Paige said it was hard to get information around here on cord blood donating, but she persisted and she's going to keep us posted. I see an opportunity for you to help raise awareness in Tennessee. Let's all stay connected on this.

Jim