NB :: if you haven’t checked out my new project, the athena exhibit, please do!

all of this purple and green means, naturally, that tomorrow is race day and i’m writing names on the back of my jersey, thinking of my goals and my inspirations.

my goals have changed a lot from when i started this season. when i first joined TNT, it was because i wanted my endurance training and racing to be more than just mine . i’ve raced three marathon and countless half marathons for me, but joining TEAM was supposed to be about be involved with someone bigger than my ego. for the most part, TEAM is bigger than my ego — but as race day inches closer, my ego creeps to the surface. somehow, as race day approaches, i lose sight of the purple and green and i start to get lost in outcome-based expectations and results.

when the season started, i wanted to improve my time from last year. heck, i wanted to kick butt and take names. i wanted to podium with the athena’s and party like a rock star. while it’s not impossible those things will happen, i know my training this season has not been as consistent as last year, and i do not want whether or not my experience  was a success to hinge on a few minutes or i place i stand for a photo. i want my experience to hinge on how much fun i had, on how many times i smile, on how many people i high five. i want my experience to about kicking the butt of my seriousness and taking down the names of those who have been affected by cancer and wearing those names on my back. i want this experience to be colored in purple and green and elation.

for all of you that have donated your dollars and time and karma, there are not enough thanks. i offer to you my race tomorrow. the names on my back and the smiles on my face.

we made the journey down and through the shenandoah valley for my old boss and great friend’s wedding. it was delightful, a truly joyous and overwhelmingly happy time. smiles were present at all times, but we were just too busy cavorting in old and new water holes (including the maury river) to capture them on film. i hope that my more diligent friends can fill in the gaps.

i bought two W&L bumper stickers so that i can fill in the gap here in minnesota, so that i can bring a piece of that six-horse town with me to the twin cities. so that despite the fact that soon, i will minnesota license plates, that i park in front of a minneapolis house, that i have adopted  midwestern way of pronouncing my vowels — despite all of these things — i will still have a piece of virginia proudly displayed.

i won’t likely be back to virginia until december, but now that kate has now seen my homes, in northern and southerwestern virginia, i can turn to her, when i need to remember the places where i’ve been, and say, tell me what you loved about virginia. and i know she’ll say:

your family. your friends. the lake. the river. everything.

it’s times like this, when i feel just a *tad* overwhelmed, that i am reminded why i am doing this in the first place. it may seem trite, but i train and race for something much bigger than myself. i train and race for my family, my friends, my coworkers, and classmates. i train and race for an end to blood cancer. i train and race in HONOR and in MEMORY of hundreds, thousands. i train and race with names on my sleeves and in my heart.

i train and race because i get to. i don’t have to. it’s an honor to represent the leukemia & lymphoma’s society team in training program.

thank you to all of you who have already contributed to my campaign. i am just $330 dollars shy of my $2,000 goal, so if you have yet to make a donation, i hope you will consider it.

you can do so, safely and securely, right here:

http://z.umn.edu/lifetri10

NB: i realize  now that, after sending this update out to over 100 people, that this is not REALLY a training update. so, a quick work on training – my knee is doing great, my butt is sore, and am constantly nervous about the muskies in lake nokomis.