Who I'm Running With This Weekend

Even though all my friends and teammates from Team in Training won’t be with me this weekend when I run the Illinois Marathon they will be with me in spirit.

These two photos will be pinned to the back of my Team in Training Jersey this upcoming Saturday

My Teammates from Team in Training.

All the people who I ran, swam, and cycled with.
The people who trained me and the people who I now help train. 

You give me the super human energy & excitment I have every Saturday morning.

My Inspirations

• My Dad – A cancer survivor who worked a full time job while FIGHTING CANCER, so I can stay in college. He is the first person I call when I finsih my races. 
  
• Firiza, Ryan, and Robbie – Cancer Survivors who each have completed a marathon.
  
• Eddie, Keegan, Katie, Paige, Fabian, Emily & Katie – Children who left their families to soon and lost their life to a blood cancer.
  

According to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Website:

• Leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children and young adults under the age of 20.
  
• Every 10 minutes, another child or adult is expected to die from leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma. (145 people each day, or six people every hour.)
  
• An estimated 138,530 people in the United States was diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma in 2008.
  

Please make a donation to my fundraising page for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Your dollars will go to life saving research that will create new life saving drugs and programs that will help improve the quality of life for cancer victims.  

As Kegan Grant said durring his cancer treatment, "You can be happy or miserable either way the distance is the same." You dam well know, I'll keep a smile on my face every mile durring any race if a little boy facing death and going through hell can keep a smile on. 

Follow Up to Inspiration

Here is the link from the playlist I mentiond in a eailer blog

Need a Little Inspiration? Listen to this...

Like many athletes I own a iPod or mp3 device and listen to it before I go running, biking, or swimming. While wacthing the olympics I heard that 8 time gold meadlist swimmer Michael Phelps listens to rap before he swims. I listen all sorts of things to get me going. Here is most popular songs that get me going...

• 3 Doors Down - The Champion in Me
• Lucas Grabeel - Go The Distance
• Joe Esposito - You're The Best
• Queen - We Will Rock You
• Harold Faltermeyer & Steve Stevens - Top Gun Anthem
• Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone
• Lion - You've Got The Touch
• Fort Minor featuring Styles of Beyond - Remember the Name
• Rascal Flatts - Feels Like Today
• Lady Antebellum - I Was Here
• Alan Silvestri - Forest Gump Suite
• Bill Conti - Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky)
• John Cafferty - Hearts on Fire
• Tomoyasu Hotei - Battle Without Honor or Humanity
• Survivor - Eye of the Tiger

If you notice there is a general theme here besides inspiration. Well, 75% of the music is from a movie. It's the kid in me, or the dork, that gets me out the door.

• Go The Distance from the Disney Movie Hercules
• You're The Best from the movie Karate Kid
• We Will Rock You from the movie D2: Mghty Ducks 2
• Top Gun Anthem from the movie Top Gun
• Danger Zone from the movie Top Gun
• You've Got The Touch from the animated Transformers: The Movie
• Forest Gump Suite from the movie Forest Gump
• Gonna Fly Now from the movie Rocky
• Hearts on Fire from the movie Rocky IV
• Battle Without Honor or Humanity from recent live action movie Transformers
• Eye of the Tiger from the movie Rocky III

You should give the my playlist a listen too or at least watch the movie they are from. You might get up from get on your shoes and run to the top of the stairs and have your "Rocky Moment".

Slogans

When ever I go running, swimming, biking, what ever I always think of the following things for inspiration

1. "Do or Do Not There is No Try" - Yoda, from the Empire Strikes Back
2. "Rock and or Roll"  - Revrand Love Joy, from the Simpsons
3. "You can be happy or your can miserable either way the distance is the same" - Kegan Grant. a little boy who lost his battle with cancer.
4. "How many people drive 26.2 miles in a day?"
5. "Pain is temporay, pride is forever" - Steve Prefontane

There are more but I can't think of them at the moment. Be Sure I'll be thinking about them this Saturday in Tucson.