john here, pre-saturday practice. i'll pop in again after practice, but i just had to get on paper (screen?) and say: IIIII AAAAMMMMMM TIIIIIIIRRRRREEEEEDDD!!!!! we were out late last night - well, late for us, not late for new york - and only ended up with 5 hours sleep. is that wimpy? maybe. but wimpy or no, it's painful this morning.
one of the comparisons i draw for participants in the program, as an honored team mate trying to shed some light for people on the value of the money we're raising from first hand perspective, is to draw an analogy between a training regimen and a medicine regimen (chemo or radiation). the challenges of both, the changes both bring, the light at the end of each tunnel. the major difference that i can see is choice: practicing today is definitely a choice (and, admittedly a difficult one!), but chemo never was (unless you count "live or die" as a choice. i didn't.)
and so one of the best ways that i can think of to honor the people who have no choice in their challenge - people like our cousin angela! - is to take on a challenge by choice, and to use that challenge as a way (through cash and consciousness raising) to lighten her load in some small way, and make it lighter for all the millions of choiceless others.
for me, too, it's a way to honor the old me, the choiceless chemo / radiation me, by making the lessons i learned by accident about challenge during that time bolster my will when it comes to other challenges i rise to on purpose.
WOAH. i am about half way through a cup of coffee (from a place called gorilla coffee - if you live in or visit brooklyn, don't let another day pass without trying) and it is working miracles on my energy levels - but moreover, writing this out has really grounded me in the reason why i'm even awake right now. so: onward, into the day and the miles (and miles and miles) of running in the early, cold, icy new york morning - BECAUSE WE CAN.