Thursday Reflections, the Art Show, and The Weekend

Thursday Reflections
Yesterday was kind of an interesting day.  My friend Doug started the process for his bone marrow transplant, and it was an amazing thing really.  Team in Training seriously has to be one of the best groups of people I have ever known.  Plastered on facebook were good wishes for Doug, and one of the cycling coaches even organized everyone to stop and say a prayer for Doug from wherever we were at 2 pm, since things got underway for Doug at 11 am.  People put things on their blogs.  It's kind of like my favorite movie "It's a Wonderful Life."  Except instead of Jimmy Stewart it's Doug and all the people who he's touched being there for him the best way we know how.

Another Team in Training person lost their best friend after repeated battles with cancer yesterday.  It reminded me so much of Angela.  The continued battling and winning, and then there being the one time that she just didn't win.  The amazing sense of loss and how this couldn't be happening, and that a friend that young shouldn't be dead.

I liked what a fellow TNT member, blogger, and friend said about cancer.  To quote the wonderful Missy (who had knee surgery this morning at 7 am): "Cancer is a coward. It picks on little kids. It picks on people that it believes are not going to fight."  And I, like Missy, and so many others of us out there, want it gone.  We need to find a cure.

It made our Bon Voyage for the team even more meaningful to me.  Here we were excited to embark on our races either at St. Anthony's next weekend or at Tri Miami  the following weekend, but I was even more excited about the fact that there were 13 people on the team, and at minimum we raised $2600 each.  Some of us raised more.  It was definitely harder in this economy getting the donations to come in.  I raised $3,341 as of yesterday.  It's not the $4700 I raised the year before, but it wasn't for lack of trying.  I even had restaurants that typically do group fundraisers turn me down by refusing to return my calls or emails and finding out from a waitress that they're not wanting to do as many this year and that they had problems with some groups not really bringing people in.  But, from the numbers I had access to, at the very minimum our team raised $38,825.  And I have to say, that's pretty darn good.  It may still be a drop in the bucket when it comes to the cost of patient services and cancer research, but it's a drop that wasn't there before.

For Doug's sake and for the sake of all cancer patients everywhere, I hope it's a drop that makes a difference.  When I'm out there at St. Anthony's trying to get the job done of my Swim/Bike/Run, I know I'm doing it for something bigger and better than myself.  And it's sure heck a lot easier than dealing with a bone marrow transplant or other cancer treatment.

The Art Show
All of that made the girls art show even more special too.  It made me so thankful for how very blessed I am to have 2 wonderfully talented, happy and healthy children and 1 talented, happy and healthy Mr. Darcy.  We had a great time at the art show (and I was there right on time - in fact, I got there before Mr. Darcy and the kids did!)  The girls were super excited and we had a great time looking at their artwork and listening to them tell us all about it.  Ladybug's room was more of a themed room with set projects where they made dinosaurs and animals and some free thinking artwork (that's what I call it where it's up to the kids as to what it's going to be), and Angelfish's room was more artistic for the most part - projects but you could see where the kids were given free reign over how things turned out.  And afterwards we went for ice cream as a treat! Here are some of their projects.

The Artists, Ladybug and Angelfish

                                

A desert scape with a snake (I thought it was poop at first); shape collage; and the elephant

Ladybug's art is above... Angelfish's is below.

A Marble picture; Angelfish was the only one to put feathers on her owl; and the last picture is a self-portrait.

We LOVE ice cream!!

The Weekend
Oh and speaking of St. Anthony's (well, a few paragraphs ago).  I think I've figured out my goals.  Here goes:

A. Finish in 3:20:00 or less.  This may be a bit lofty, but hey, if everything goes just right I can do it!

B. Beat my current PR of 3:36:55.05.

C. Finish close to my PR of 3:36:55.05, since that course was a little shorter and I've had back issues in recent weeks.

D. Finish in an upright position with a smile on my face and not having freaked out during the swim.  I tend to freak out during the swim on race day.  There's going to be a ton of people.  But this race, I don't want to freak out for a change.

E. Finish in an upright position with a smile on my face.

F. Finish in an upright position.

G. Finish.

After this morning's 28:34 minute walk.  (Sorry, Coach, I thought I'd be back in 20 but accidentally went on the 2 mile path instead of the 1 1/2 mile.)  It went fine.  No pain when I walked, and I did a 10 second jog when I first started with very minor pain, an 30 second jog about 1/2 way through that had some pain but not bad, and then another 30 second run just before I finished and it was just very minor pain - and only down my shin.  So I think my nerve is getting happier.  Let's hope it keeps getting happier so all goes well on race day!

I've already decided also that after last night's ice cream, I'm going to endeavor to only eat holistically from today through race day (except bread because I just don't have time to make it myself, but I eat whole grain bread as it is). And hopefully from there on out too.  I'm a pretty wholistic eater for the most part, eating food in it's natural state, as it is but the past couple of weeks have not been overly wholistic.

I'm looking forward to Saturday.  It'll be a busy one, but I think good.  I start the morning with the Team for our last Saturday group practice before St. Anthony's - 2,000m swim and 10 mile bike.  Then a shower, some time with the girls and then volunteering for Junior League with my friend M., then home and a little time with the girls before Mr. Darcy and I go on a date to see "Date Night."  I'm looking forward to it.  Sunday we're probably going to head to the neighborhood pool for a bit.  The girls have been asking to go this entire week!

I hope you have happy training and good times this weekend! (And let me know if the new blue is easier to read... I've gotten some people saying they see it fine in grey and some who don't... so I'm hoping the blue will work for everyone!)