40 is the new 26.2!: 36 Days

Saturday, March 14th - 36 Days to Marathon Monday

Temp: 30 degrees (and rainy!!)

Distance: 14 Miles

Link to Donate HERE - Thank You!!

The word of the day is: black ice! 14 miles today outside with the Dana-Farber team. It was cold, rainy, and windy, and the sidewalks were full of black ice that we couldn't see until we were sliding on it. Noone fell fortunately, but we all skidded across a few patches of ice and had a few good laughs. The rain started to fall heavy at about mile 7 so we were all a bunch of drowned rats by the time we got back. But today I got to run the route with two awesome ladies, another Boston Marathon newbie like myself, and a 16 time runner who is running for her 4 year old son's best friend who is a patient at DF. We had so much fun talking that the 14 miles fell off quickly and we barely felt Grossman's hill in Wellesley (which if you haven't done it is steeper and longer than some of the Heartbreak hills).

One of the things we talked about during our run was our patient partners. All three of us are running for a pediatric patient and it's changed all of our lives. My friend who is running for her son's friend said that he is coming up on his 1 year "re-birthday," which means that he will be cancer free for 1 year. She said that his family had tried several treatment options with him and nothing was working, until his mom asked if there were any trials he could participate in. DF got him involved in a clinical trial that was funded by Marathon Challenge funds, and that one worked. He's been cancer free since then. That's what this challenge is all about. It's about funding scientists who are making discoveries that are working and saving lives. For those of you who don't know, 100% of all donations go to fund scientists. 100%. Nothing is taken out. To me, this is a really big deal. I've seen several groups where 77-85% goes to research. Dana-Farber structures it so that the runners and other private donors pay ALL the admin funds so that ALL the donations go to research, and it's actually working to save lives.