tinykitchenstories

I’m up for this! I’m actually going to be running 11 miles that day, training for the OC Half Marathon on May 6, so I can count 5k of that to this fun, global goal. Challenge accepted!

(Besides, I’ve got to work off those pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes…)

Here’s why I started running in the first place, in case anyone’s interested. Mom and Steve Piet: I miss you!

I found a flyer for Team in Training in 2008 when one of my best friends from high school was struggling with cancer for the second time in his young life. He was only 37, and I didn’t know what to do to help him. I had always wanted to try to run an endurance race, and I thought that the support of a group like Team in Training would be a great way to do it, plus help support cancer research and run in Steve’s name. I had also lost my mother to cancer when I was only 22 (six weeks after my marriage to my first husband!), so there was two reasons to join Team in Training.

I loved Team in Training, and the support I received was amazing—not just to help me with the running, but also emotionally—when Steve passed away two weeks before the race, everyone on my team was there for me. With the names of Steve, my mother, and many others who had struggled with or passed from cancer sewn to my shirt, I finished my first half-marathon (San Diego Rock and Roll) in 2 hours and 22 minutes.

I was hooked! I joined Team in Training again, but as a mentor. I ran my second half-marathon, the Santa Barbara half in 2009, in just 2 hours and 6 minutes. The third time I signed up with Team in Training, as a mentor again, was in 2010, and my sister signed up too. Both of her ankles had been badly broken when she was 18, and one is now fused, but it did not deter her (even though her orthopedic surgeon thought she was crazy!) I developed bursitis in my knee and couldn’t run, which was fine in the end because I walked it with my sister at my side through San Francisco at the 2010 Women’s Half Marathon. We both love our Tiffany necklace!

This will be the first time I’m doing a race without Team in Training. I’ve been struggling with a bad hamstring, but I know I’ll finish. I might not beat my 2 hours 6 minute time, but I am doing the race with my step-sister, so it will just leave one sister I’ve not done a race with! I’ll see if I can get her out one of these days. I’ll be wearing my Team in Training jersey, or perhaps a new shirt to honor Steve and my mother, at the OC race, for sure.

I look forward to getting the Beach Cities medal in 2013, and maybe signing back up with Team in Training for the Long Beach or Surf City race. It’s a great organization I’m proud to have been a part of.