Saturday, August 8, 2009

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer



In the past two years two very special people that are close to me have been diagnosed with breast cancer. My "Aunt" Steph and one of my best friends, Melody were diagnosed in 2007 and 2008 with breast cancer. Both of these lovely people won the fight! "Aunt" Steph is doing great! Melody was battled breast cancer last year at age 28. She was such a trooper, a fighter, and a conquerer of this ugly disease and she WON the battle. She is doing remarkable! If you want to view her story you can click here.

Because Mel has such an interesting breast cancer story and because she was so young when she had her double mastectomy the American Cancer Society has asked Mel to form a team for a 5k event called Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. How could I not do this? First, it raises money for the American Cancer Society. Second it is a way to celebrate Mel's victory. And third it will be a blast. As you all know I am not an athletic person. However I know that I can do this...run, jog, or walk...I can do this.

With the race quickly approaching on October 17 I NEEDED to get started on my training. A long-time girlfriend, Alysia and her husband, Curtis found a website that gave a 6 week training schedule. So I am going to follow their lead and do the same. You can see Alysia's blog here.

I started day #1 yesterday which was REST. Not too hard since I feel like I rest everyday. Day #2 started today. Today's schedule called for 1 minute of running, followed by 1 minute of walking (repeated 10 times). Since Kevin and I recently purchased a treadmill I thought I would do it inside on the treadmill. Let's just say I am out of shape and it was difficult. Not sure if the difficulty was because of the workout or because I had a two year old little boy at my feet trying to put his John Deere tractor on the treadmill. I could not tell if I was out of breath from the running or at the stress of having Zachary near the machine. Today's workout has taught me to wait until Zachary is asleep or to wake up early to run before he wakes up. Anyways, I DID IT! I am so proud. Yes, I know it was only 21 minutes but I did it. I'll keep you posted on my training. Just get ready to see a very happy group of friends on October 17th after the 5K is over.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay!!! I'm so, so, SO excited that you're going to be following the same plan as us! We will definitely have to keep each other motivated. Especially when it gets to those lengthier running sessions. I made it through the 2 minute/4 minute intervals...next up is 3/3! I don't know if I'll make it or not, but I'm sure gonna try:) Way to go, Hil!

Casey and Kim said...

This is very cool! You can do this!

Julie Anne Pettyjohn said...

Kudos to you. I will add my thanks to you, also, since my family has had our history of breast cancer too. So many families have - but there are so many survivors these days, that's great news.

Hey, can you let us know the site that explains the training. I've started a few times, but being so, so out of shape and not a runner ever in my life, I literally didn't know what to do after I ran one block and that was all I could do at the moment. Didn't know whether to walk, then run some more and how often etc.

The Divine Ms Abbey D said...

I am so excited that you are doing this!