So last night was our first swimming practice--in quite possibly the best pool facility that I've ever had the pleasure of swimming in. And as I (andrea) have mentioned in previous writing, and to anyone that has seen me struggle through a running practice, swimming is the easy part for me.

For the most part this is still true, BUT I had no idea how much I'd be learning (or unlearning and relearning) from the coaches. I am learning new ways to run and swim and I am sure eventually bike all focused on being as efficient as possible and making the motions of these very different activities similar. It is incredibly smart and I am very grateful that I am not muddling through this by myself.

I also just wanted to comment about this whole blog thing which is also new to me. It is really great to have this way to share our experience of training and engaging in the struggle against blood cancers. But even better is to know that we're sharing it. Thank you to everyone that is looking at this and letting us know you're watching (it keeps us performing!) and thank you to those that are posting responses to our thoughts!

just a quick note to let it be known: andrea is the mechanic in the family. i (john) sat down last night to try and put together her bike and have it all ready for her when she walked in, but instead she walked in to a total mess.
she looked at the mess for about 20 seconds and sorted everything right out (i'd been at it for a half hour). so i'm officially not that great at putting things together. you heard it here first.

I (Andrea) thought that I would let everyone in on my little training secret... its called the "Cardio Theater." I'm imagining that most gyms these days probably have such things since the Y isn't known for being on the cutting edge of technology--or at least not our humble Y. But its really great. Each treadmill, bike, etc. has its own flat TV screen attached and you plug your headphones into a little remote attached to the machine and spend a half hour watching Trading Spaces or E True Hollywood Stories or lately the Olympics (I should probably be embarassed by my viewing choices) .

It really is the best of both worlds (the worlds of sedentary life vs. an active life) and it distracts me enough to get through my training without focusing on every little ache and burn. Soon enough I'll have to let go of this crutch as we move practices to the real terrain we'll have to master. But for now I'm loving the Cardio Theater and apparently I'm not afraid to let others know it.

john "am i really this sore?" foley-murphy here. holy smokes. i decided i'd throw some weights into the workout yesterday and felt great about it until i woke up today and felt like someone had tucked a boxcutter in my armpit in my sleep. it's that bad. good thing sunday is a day of rest.

big news: i am a runner again! i've been nursing an injury since the marathon this time last year, when i somehow hurt my foot. doctors told me it was not so much my foot but really something more in my shin or calf pulling on my foot, so to stretch and exercise my calf blah blah blah i never really did, just complained a ton about the foot. now the swimming and biking, even just 2 weeks of it, has done exactly what the doctor ordered, and i feel great when i run. which is why, when i was done running, i got on the weights. injury-free euphoria is a dangerous state of mind. and an even more dangerous state of armpit.

it's been cold in new york, so we haven't bike practiced outside yet, but tuesday our mail order bikes get here. keep your fingers crossed for us - we haven't actually seen more than a photo of these things, ever. our coach told us they would be fine, and the price was right, but we're nervous. t minus 2 days to find out how nervous we should be!

Training is getting intense. But needing to train for three different activities really keeps you going. If you miss a swimming workout one doesn't come around again for another 5-7 days and then you're that far behind where you want to be so we're really sticking to our training calendar. The thing that I wasn't expecting was how tired I would be--I did the bike training last night around 8 and was in the pool at 6 this morning and that's not a lot of rest. But the thing is that eventually I am going to do these things with no rest. YIKES!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, our practice is going to introduce us to the race course. Right now I don't even want to see it. It is intimidating to think of it right now. I'd rather focus a little more on the short term goals...doing what I need to do today, maybe this week. But I have enormous faith that the coaches know what they're doing. So if the freezing rain that's predicted holds off, I'll let you know what the course looks like.

Happy Valentine's Day. I thought that I (andrea) would use the holiday as a chance to write about love and cancer. Angela's diagnosis and our involvement with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has brought up a lot of emotions around this that I had long burried--sort of.
As Murph wrote on Sunday, we don't usually look for ways to talk about cancer--certainly not with strangers--but really getting involved with Team in Training creates those opportunities. When Murph speaks about it to a group of people, they're moved. People tear up and some reach out and want to talk about it more with us because they can relate. So many people have had some kind of cancer touch their own lives or threaten the life of someone that they love dearly.
And for me, when Murph was diagnosised with Hodgkin's disease, it was one of the moments of my life that I will never forget. The world stopped turning on its axis and my heart broke wide open. And it hurt like hell and I've never been more scared in my life but the things that mattered to me also became so incredibly clear. That part of it was a gift. I got over my own junk and only wanted for him to get better--which thank God he has--and with my junk out of the way I found within myself a greater capacity for love, for myself and him and others. And that, when it comes down to it is why I have to do this, why we have to get better at finding cures for all cancers.
Because there's very little else I can do. And that is frustrating when you would move heaven and earth for someone. Because I love Murph and I want nothing more than for him to share his life with me for as long as possible. Because Angela needs to be around to love her husband and children and they her. Because Marie, a 15 year-old honored teammate for the NYC Triathlon team, needs to be around to love and be loved by her family and friends--and to grow up and fall crazy in love. So today I celebrate that cancer already doesn't have to equal a funeral, it can be cured in more and more cases all the time. But I'm not taking any chances with the people I love.

john here. we're buried in nyc, it's a blizzard out there (fingers crossed for a snow day from work tomorrow!). we braved the weather to get out in support of some teammates who were hosting an event at a downtown manhattan bar. the place was packed with people who either a) came out to support the cause or b) came in to hide from the snow. either way, lots of dollars were raised for the society, which was great. and always good fun to get up in front of a crowd!

plus, afterwards, plenty of people shared some really great connections to the cause, which is one of the real gifts of being an honored teammate: being open about my story invites others to share theirs. after speaking, we went out to the street with some new friends and made sidewalk angels in the blizzard snow.

first saturday practice in brooklyn!!! we exercised a ton this week and came into today a little tired, but we both survived. having a blast connecting with the peoples from the team, and getting to know the coaches. also, we purchased andrea's bike yesterday. still on the hunt for murph's. and any minute now we'll be sending out all of our "please donate!" materials - keep an eye on your mailbox or, as always, check us out here or here. tomorrow: a day of rest. thank god.

This morning was our first official swimming training--though without the team-- and one of the things that we were supposed to do was swim for 20 minutes straight and see how far we could go. If we could make it a half mile or more in the 20 minutes we can be considered ADVANCED swimmers. We both did it! For me (Andrea) the swimming is the only part of this where I can have a shread of pride about my athletic abilities. I am going to be seriously dogging it on the runs for a while so it just makes me feel a little better that I can be comfortable and confident in my ability for some of this. And I have to say that it feels pretty good (despite my very sore muscles) to have completed a solid workout by 7:15 am. I certainly wasn't motivating myself to do that.

Andrea here.
For those of you that don't know what an Olympic distance triathlon is and I didn't until very recently. We'll eventually be confident in our ability to swim .9 mile, then cycle for 25 miles, and then run for 6.2 miles--all in one morning.

So I just survived the first team training practice--running and squats--not bad considering it has been years since I did any real running. For John this part of the training really isn't a challenge yet. I am sure that he'll be pushed soon enough though. We were very lucky with the weather--the rain held off until we were done-- I hope that it is a good sign for the coming months.

The most amazing thing is the team. There are about 340 people training with the NYC chapter of Team in Training for the NYC triathlon. I'm not going to do the math right now, but that's a lot of money for cancer research! Everyone is so encouraging to one another and there is a collective energy in the group that really helped me to do it this morning.

Remember that in addition to finishing the triathlon in July our goal is also to raise $5,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Soceity and that's the part that we need your help with. Stay tuned!

Everything is happening so fast! It was just 2 weeks ago we officially decided to do this, and now tomorrow already is our first practice with the team. Meanwhile, we've been checking out our fitness level at the gym - turns out John can swim well enough to practice with the "Advanced" swimmers (like Andrea, who still swims laps around him).
John is also doing the race as an Honored Teammate, sort of the connection to the cause for those who (luckily) do not have any family or friends whose lives where touched by cancer. This year, August will mark 5 years in remission from Hodgkin's Disease for John - in the world of oncology, 5 years is roughly translated as "cured." So it's a big deal.
We are doing the race, however, not just because of our celebration this year but, even more so, in honor of Andrea's cousin, Angela, who is currently battling Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. And we are joined by several other family members in honoring Angela - including Andrea's parents, Mike and Donna.
Basically, it's a big year - big celebrations and big challenges - so we're taking on a big challenge in hopes of and in honor of a big celebration for Angela someday soon.
Follow the links to our fundraising pages to lend a hand in funding life-saving research!