Lance-ing it up

As a follow-up to my last post, I've decided I like this whole triathlon idea. I'm going above the training schedule at this point, because I think I need less than the scheduled three months of training the Women's Health plan suggests, so I'm skipping ahead to month two of the plan, and incorporating some extra cross-training because I actually have time for such things- oh the beauty of summer! I feel like such a tough girls saying a training program is too easy for me, but I think my half marathon training has prepared me well for this new challenge.

However, the one aspect of triathlon training I was not prepared for was cycling. Yes, I can ride a bike sans training wheels, but in order to do this, one must have said bicycle. I have been taking spin classes for the last few weeks, and they're fun, challenging, and a change of pace from running, but I was still longing to ride on the open road, the pavement beneath me, a helmet on my head.

I began to research bikes, and what I found seems to be the most critical part of purchasing a bicycle is, well, having the money for one. Road bikes cost thousands of dollars! Also, it is critical that the bike be the correct size for the cyclist, otherwise injury is likely. To learn more, I stopped in a local shop, and got the run-down from a knowledgeable employee, who told me that while they sell an affordable bike for $680 (ha ha, seriously?), he would recommend I spend a 'few hundred' more dollars for a better bike. When I asked why, he told me the 'cheap' bike wouldn't work in a year or two. I left empty handed and disheartened, but determined, nonetheless.

I'm a pretty thrifty girl, and I would even call myself frugal, at times, so I certainly don't spend that kind of money without researching my options. So I began scouring the internet to determine my best options. Turns out, there are used bikes available through a variety of sources, but finding the right bike, one with the proper fit, made me nervous.

...Until I found the site of The Boys and Girls Club Bike Exchange. This awesome organization has a shop, located in Mercer County, just outside the city of Trenton. I took a drive there and found that they have a TON of used bikes that are refurbished by a team of dedicated volunteers. They're cyclists themselves, so they're knowledgeable in all things bicycle.

On my arrival, I was greeted by a friendly woman who helped me find the perfect bike for me, one that fit my body and my budget. My shiny 'new' Schwinn Traveler is red, and I learned after a little serial number research that it was manufactured in 1982...Three years before I was born!

I've had the bike out three times now, and may I say, it is AWESOME. Proof being that I keep going out despite the aches and pains that come with biking a lot after not biking for a long time.

I think that the moral of this post is that while I love running for a multitude of reasons, among them the fact that it's a great start-up activity because it's really cheap to get a pair of sneakers, I wish I'd broken my loyalty sooner and gotten road a bicycle and a helmet before now. I just didn't remember how much fun riding a bike is. If you haven't ridden in a while, give it a shot. You'll find that it comes back easily, because it's, well, like riding a bicycle.

Hope, Love, Run (Bike)
Marathon (Triathlon) Girl

Tri-ing it out

So it's been a little over two weeks since the Cancerversary Half-Marathon, and about a week after, I ran a 5K, almost breaking my PR, despite the humid, 90+ degree temps. I was within seconds of equaling a time I earned last summer in the Sprintin' Clinton 5K, and although I didn't break the record, I was happy with myself.

Since then, I've been itching for a new goal, and I think I want to branch out a little bit. I decided I needed to step up my game with this new challenge. I contemplated a full marathon, but then I got my first issue of Women's Health Magazine. My best friend got me a subscription for my birthday- probably because when I visited her last summer, I left with a backpack full of past issues she had in her apartment. In the May issue, there's an article titled, 'Yes, You can be a Triathlete'

I read every word, probably about three times, now. And I remembered back to last summer when I was working on the farm. I had many shifts pulling weeds with a young woman who worked in the cycling industry and was avidly active. She said on more than one occasion, "You do a half-marathon, the next thing you're going to want to do is a tri."

At the time, I nodded, smiled, and kept pulling weeds. I didn't have any real interest in biking and swimming. I loved running.

But here I am a year later...A week into the Women's Health Triathlon training program. So far, the training has seemed light, and I am thinking about skipping ahead because it seems the program's starting point isn't accounting for the fact that I just trained for and ran a half-marathon, so perhaps I'll be tri-ready in less than the recommended three months.

At any rate, I am excited to commit to a new challenge and take on swimming and cycling!

I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Hope, Love, Run,
Marathon Girl (Triathlon Girl?)

Invincible

Here's the big update: The run is DONE! Today is my official 5-year cancerversary, but I ran my commemorative half marathon last weekend, and I consider it a success. I arrived in Boston after a traffic-less four hour drive. As I drove, I considered what the weekend meant, what it represented for me. The more I thought about it, the clearer it became.

Just like a song gets stuck in your head when you hear it too much, there are phrases that get stuck in mine when the sentiment resonates strongly with what I'm feeling. When I was first diagnosed, the phrase that kept replaying in my mind was "I feel robbed of my invincibility." Meaning that I felt a sense of great loss for the endless sea of possibilities that previously stretched before me. I feared a loss of the following when I found out I had cancer: my big plans for getting married in a few years, having a family some day, graduating from college and beginning a career- even the possibility of retiring and growing old- all were reduced to the hope of living to see my college graduation in eleven months. I contemplated whether I would stay in school if I learned I might not live far beyond that day. I wondered what the lives of those around me would look like if I were gone. Robbed of my invincibility. Those words echoed in my head for days.

As I drove North toward Boston, that familiar phrase I couldn't get out of my head began to morph into something else, and by the time we drove past Fenway, a new concept was resonating inside me: taking back my invincibility.

It seems so clear that this is what I have been working toward for the last five years. I lost so much when I got cancer; I gave up a year of my life to a questionable treatment in the hope that the torture I endured would somehow serve as penance and earn me more years to live. I spent several years after I completed treatment trying to figure out why I didn't feel well, despite being told I should be fine. I worked to get my body healthy and my heart healed from the loss of relationships I valued. I was determined not to let my past mar my future. Running 13.1 miles through the streets of Boston seemed to cement in my mind that I have completed the transformation.

Because what I realized last weekend was that I have done all of these things, and more. It seems I have earned my invincibility back. It seems that way. But in reality, I don't believe I could possibly earn back my invincibility.

The truth is, I lost a lot when I got cancer, but my invincibility wasn't one of those things. I was never invincible before I got cancer; I didn't become invincible until I fought cancer. When I decided I was going to fight, that's when I started to become invincible.

When I had three surgeries less than a month apart from one another, I became invincible.
When I went to the hospital alone five days a week for chemo, I became invincible.
When I learned how to inject the chemo at home, and did it three times a week for the next eleven months, I became invincible.
When I flew across the country to Montana in the dead of winter to meet other cancer patients my age, I became invincible.
When I decided I needed to write about my experience, I became invincible.
When I decided I needed to run, I became invincible.

Logically, I understand that no one is invincible. But to me, feeling invincible means I know, with certainty, that I can do absolutely anything. If I commit to something, anything- Running a race, earning a masters degree, writing a memoir- I can, and will do it. It's the best feeling in the world.

Cancer helped me to find my invincibility, and it is with sincerity that I hope you find yours. Take on a challenge, make a commitment, take a stand. Believe. You are invincible too, you just don't know it yet.

Hope, Love, Run!
Marathon Girl

Time to Go!

My bags aren't packed yet, but by the end of the day, I'll be in Boston, ready to run the half-marathon tomorrow morning! The forecast looks very promising- cloudy and 65-75 degrees during the time I'll be running. I'm psyched and feel well prepared for this race. I was ready when I did it in the fall, but I had been dealing with significantly more injuries- hip and knee pain, a foot issue, and the pain of minor shin splints which seem to be inevitable for me. But this time around, things are are feeling a lot better- Thanks to custom running orthotics, conscientious stretching, and trail running many of my longer runs. I have developed a minor shin splint in the last few weeks, but with ice, it's been manageable.

I still haven't reached my fund raising goal, but I have hope that I'll still get there! If you are considering contributing, take a look at my page, and watch the video there. If it moves you, give a few dollars.

My actual 5-year cancerversary is Sunday, June 5th, but the celebration officially starts tomorrow at 8:00 AM.

Hope, Love, Run,
Marathon Girl

YAY!!!

Lilly Oncology on Canvas Video...Awesome :) Look for me around 1:00

Write it Out

It's been almost two years since I finished writing the stories of my cancer experience. I wrote them all down in an effort to make sense of all the physical and emotional pain I experienced from the time I was diagnosed until I finished treatment, or at least I thought that was what I was doing.

When I originally started writing, I began with about ten blank Word documents, each titled some thing like, "The One When..." or "The One Where..." they were modeled after the ten seasons of Friends episodes I watched when I was first diagnosed and anything but sitcoms made me cry.

The documents were meant to be individual narratives that told the stories of the pivotal moments in my experience with cancer. But as I wrote one, I would think of two more experiences I needed to write about, and so I would create more blank documents, all with titles adhering to the same format. The more I wrote, the more stories I found I wanted- and needed- to tell. Some of the stories were emotional, others were funny, and there were others that I left blank for a long time because I knew that writing them would force me to relive experiences so painful I didn't know if I could put to words what had actually happened.

But eventually I did. In August, 2009, I wrote a final document, titled "The Last One." I then pieced the documents in order, and wrote a preface explaining them. I have only printed any of it once. I gave it to a friend to read, and have since emailed it to one other person. I recently began reading it again, and though I haven't yet reached the halfway point, I'm thinking when I get to the end, I'm going to feel like I have a lot more story to tell. I only told stories up to the point I finished treatment, and as it turns out, that wasn't really the end of the fight.

At the time, I felt I couldn't go too much further, because it was all too close to write about; it was my present life, not a memory. But now things are different, and I think maybe it's time to tell the rest of the story, the part that comes after treatment ends, but before I figured out who I really was after cancer.

I thought since I've been discussing it, I at least owe you a piece of the story. So here's "The Last One" which it turns out, isn't actually the last one, after all. It may still come at the end when I finish telling the stories that I haven't written yet, but it's a much shakier version of the person I have become, there is an uncertainty in it that I don't feel anymore, so I think I'll have to revise it, but a lot of it still rings true.

The Last One

It’s been three years now since I went to see Dr. Cassetty for the first time. Just yesterday I was driving through town and while at a stoplight, I happened to glance in my rear-view mirror where the people in the car behind me were waving furiously. They continued to do this while I tried to figure out just who was in that car. When I finally turned around to get a better look, I saw that it was Dr. Cassetty and his wife. I waved back and then the light turned green.

I have met many wonderful people who I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t gotten sick. I am thankful everyday that I went to see him when I did. I am well aware that if I hadn’t, my story would have looked very different; I might not be sitting here writing this. Another doctor might have brushed me off at my expense; after all, it happened once to me.

The scars on my body have begun to fade, slowly but surely. And the anger I once felt toward the boy who broke my heart, the friends who abandoned me, and for the invincibility I was robbed of, have become blurred around the edges. Yet it still only takes a blink of an eye for those things to come back into clear focus; an irregular CT scan that threatens to destroy everything I have worked so hard to earn back, running into that boy’s father, or a party where one of those friends shows up- all these things send me back to that place where the future was uncertain.

I am proud of the person I have become, and while I never thought I would believe it, life might actually be better after cancer than it was before. While my value of life is greater, I do feel that it is at times a curse. For every thunderstorm I am grateful to be a witness to-they make me feel alive- there is a girls’ night out at work that I feel guilty about turning down because I don’t feel completely at ease with these young women, because I have not shared my story with them.

While I have to live with these frustrations, I am more than happy to do so. I view life differently and have embraced my new found love of exercise and, dare I say, sports. I savor the moments I can play tennis, ski, take pilates, step classes, and dance classes, I run races, swim laps, and lift weights, and of course I fly across the country to get back in that kayak each summer. These things have become my therapy, for both my broken body and as a means of fostering a winning spirit. I have come to view life as a competition. I don’t compete against others, but with myself; how much weight can I lift? How far can I run? How much can I live? When I run further, when I lift more, when I push myself further than I thought I could the day before, I build my confidence in the fact that I can win the medical battles as well.

I suppose this is where I should share the moral of my story. It doesn’t end with a ‘happily ever after’ and I suppose that’s a good thing because it means my story, my life, is still a work in progress. Thankfully, it isn’t over yet.

I don’t have any grand epiphany to share now that I’ve written this whole thing, but if I were to tell you what I have learned from all the things that happened, it is this: You can’t win if you don’t fight. Life is an uphill battle whether you have cancer or not. Things will always happen. Bad things will happen, no matter how good you are. But success is not about dodging the bad things. Success is taking the worst and turning it into something better.

Bad things will happen, and that sucks. But you have to keep going, because that is what you are supposed to do when life goes terribly wrong; pick up the pieces of your broken self and keep moving, because as long as you can hold yourself together and push yourself onward, you’re bound to get to a better place. Whether it’s health or heaven, eventually things will get better, and I am living, breathing proof of that.