July 15th - Group Run

Today I ran the farthest I've ever gone - about 14.5 miles. That's over half the distance I'll need to run for the marathon! We started at Lake Nokomis and went over to Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun and then back. Grace was my running partner today and I don't know if I would've had the motivation to finish without her there with me. By the end my knees and hip flexors were screaming and my whole body seemed to have tightened up. But it's done and next week is a back down week :-) The weird thing is that I'm noticing the toll it's all taking on my body by the fact that I came home, showered, ate something and then fell asleep for seven hours - that's more than I slept last night! And I know I won't have trouble getting to bed tonight.

A couple updates:
* This next week's Wednesday group run will be the Torchlight 5K. It should be lots of fun and I hope a lot of team members are able to show.
* I have a fundraiser on Friday, August 17th at Lodge Bar. I will be selling 3-for-1 drink tickets for $5 and all the money will go towards my fundraising. If I can sell 100 tickets, that's $500 for my fundraising!
* We are having a team fundraising event on September 16th at Gastof's in NE Minneapolis. There will be dinner tickets and a silent auction. More details are still to come, but I currently need to find some great silent auction items.
* I will be doing one or two Twins game fundraising events. Grandma and Grandpa have volunteered to help me on August 21st, so the three of us will be at the game handing out tickets to people as they enter the gates and then the Twins will donate about $60 ($20 for each of us) to my fundraising account.
* The training has been coming along well and now I need to get back to my fundraising. I still have $1200 to raise to meet my minimum commitment and $1600 to meet my personal fundraising goal.

On a side note, I just found out that one of my high school friends, Mike Grover, has been diagnosed with a malignant form of astrocytosis. They found a mass in his brain and it seems to be in stage 3 or 4, which is not good. They would like to start him on chemo and radiation as soon as possible. We are still waiting to hear more details as the lab results come in. I want to thank those that have been keeping me updated on his condition and I would like to ask you all to keep him in your thoughts as he goes through this difficult battle.