14.36 and Boy Was That Terrible.

This marathon training is teaching me one hard lesson. This will most likely be the one and only marathon I ever do. It's really doing a number on me and the truth is, if it weren't for this cause, I'd be packing it in and calling it a day.

So Sunday, I ran 14.36 miles all told. It is the furthest distance I have ever "run" in my entire life. Ever. Ever. But I have to put the "run" part in quotes because around mile 12, I just couldn't do it anymore and had to walk. I was still 2 miles from home and at first shut my watch off in disappointment and defeat. But then I realized, either way I was walking home and the truth is there is a very good chance that I will be walking part of this marathon anyway, and that is totally ok for me. So I flipped the watch back on and let the miles continue because, ultimately, I was getting the distance in.

Today my right knee is a mess. I am icing it like crazy and hoping that I can feel ok enough to run tomorrow. I am likely to take my Sunday run and drop it to something like 8-9 miles as an easier week, but we will see how it plays out. A while ago, when I started this adult onset athleticism, I remember Claudia telling me it was better to go into a race under-trained than over-trained. I remember being surprised by that, but there is a lot of truth to it in the end. I would rather go into this having to push more on the day than wreck myself along the way of getting there. Its a hard lesson to learn, but its one I have learned in spades. Truth is, I am way off a plan now. I am making my plan up as I am going and I am making it up with an eye to being very conservative. I really don't care about the time. I don't care about the place I come in. I care about my cause and I care about living to fight another day, you know? Most of all, I care that I can run, because for a while even that wasn't in the cards. So while I had to walk the last 2 miles of my run on Sunday, I ran 12 miles and did ok with it. And that is such a blessing, really. I am not Deena Kastor and I don't want to be. I'm me and that me may be someone who has to walk a big chunk of a marathon, but knowing I am doing it for the right reasons is what matters.

I wound up taking Tuesday morning off. I was still hurting and wound up having to work a lot that night, so the two things together told me to just relax and heal. Tomorrow morning I am heading out and will see where things stand now.

I found out on Friday that 2 team members and 1 backup team member of Team Casa Myrna Vazquez have pulled out of the race due to injury. Which leaves us with a team that is now 1 short. Not good. But truth is, I am not surprised. When our team first kicked off the guy who had been assigned to the team as the "coach" sent everyone out his plan. Mind you most runners for a charity are new runners, or at least new marathoners. So you have to be cognizant of that from the get go. The coach presented a plan that had a long run the first week of 8 miles and the second week of 13. Most runners live and die by the 10% rule. You never increase your overall mileage in a week or in a single run by more than 10% of the week before. Breaking that usually means shin splints and stress fractures and lots of bad things. Even I was walking a fine line in kicking my mileage up as quickly as I did, but it was careful, measured, and started far enough back that I could do it ok. But the team coach started people off on the last week of December, with little time to build up to it. And off people went. I had expressed some concern with this plan to the group, but short of irking the coach, I don't think anyone really paid much attention. Bummer. So now the team is coming up short. And with several months still to go and the distances increasing, I am not sure how the rest of the team will fare. I just know for me, I am out there on April 21st regardless.

More later, as I figure out where things stand. Stay tuned... its always exciting over here. :) And happy Wednesday.

12.81 Miles of Complete and Utter Hell

As I am learning, training for a marathon is hard work. I knew it would be, but until I was knee deep in it and doing it, I don't think I realized how much of a challenge it would be. What makes it even worse? Doing it in the winter.

Sunday was supposed to be a 14 mile run. After my 11.26 miles, I figured I could add 2 and a half miles and be ok to manage. And the truth is, I probably would have been, had a few things not happened all at once to make it a challenge. Remember the movie "A Perfect Storm?" Which for those of you from New England, you can probably remember the storm itself. I grew up far enough inland that we had a "hurricane" but it wasn't anything as fancy as my siblings and I were hoping for. When you are an adolescent, some how the roof tearing off the house takes on a coolness factor that adults don't seem to share. Anyhoo. My reason for bringing that storm and movie up is that each of the pieces by themselves weren't anything unusual, but you converge them all at once and things get messy.

So here comes my run on Sunday. And I watched as the forecast kept saying Sunday was going to be colder and colder and colder. And it was. 23 degrees with a "feels like" temperature of 14 degrees. Wow. Ok, so cold. But it add to the cold a brutal, chapping wind at 9.2 mph. Now let me give you a sense of scale here. On average, I run somewhere around a 5.4 mph pace. It's not fast. Throw a 9.2 mile an hour wind in my face and guess what happens. Yep. I grind to a halt. So 14 miles, brutal weather. And I am gonna make it just a little worse. I am under calories from the day before and I knew it. It wasn't intentional or anything... the day got away from me. But lord when you are out there doing 14 miles, there's not a lot of room for error.

So there I go. And wouldn't you know it, I cannot get warm. There is nothing worse than running when you can't get warm. My quads always felt like they were about to lock up. My calves weren't much better. And as time went on, and here I was fighting the wind, I noticed the water in my fuel belt was starting to freeze around the periphery of the bottles. Worse yet, the nozzles froze quickly, so as I was running and running and running, I was having to really breathe on these things to get any water out.

In the end, I pulled out 12.81 miles. But wow, it may have been my slowest run of all time 11:20 pace. The thing about running in NYC is no matter where you go, you hit that damn street grid. I love the grid, don't get me wrong. I am a big fan of the grid and the Commissioner's Plan in Manhattan that kind of set the pace for a lot of the expansion in other boroughs, but not when it becomes a wind channel in my face. I just could not catch a break. The wind just funnels itself between these buildings and speeds up a little and can just plain suck. And this did.

When I got home from that run, I couldn't get my hat off. It had frozen to my hair. Literally. There was ice on it. Now mind you, I have run in plenty of cold before. I kind of like it, to be honest. But not like this. I needed to catch a break and I just couldn't. And it sucked. It took me forever to warm up. I shivered and shook through my stretching, to say the least. And then took a nice hot bath.

During the run my knees felt decent. After the run, my right knee was a little sore again, so I have to keep icing it more tonight as I am going to sleep. Tomorrow morning I am up nice and early for a run with my old running buddy, which will be such a welcome change of pace. So that's where things stand for now. I don't care if I have to fight this battle mile ontop of mile each week, I will do it. Let's just hope that was the worst run of the season, shall we?

And thanks to all who keep the donations to my cause coming in. I promise to write more about that topic this week... but this is already a little long, so I am going to leave it here.

Happy Monday, all.

Welcome Phedippidations Listeners

I was so thrilled to have Steve help me plead my case on episode 131. And clearly it piqued your interest, cause... well, here you are...

Please take a minute and help me, even in the smallest way possible, towards my goal. $10 will go a long way. And I have a long way yet to go.

http://www.firstgiving.com/runjcrun



As a quick update, I have learned that my charity has had to recently close its emergency shelter. When it comes down to budget cuts and you have to lose court advocates, a 24-hour hotline or a temporary shelter, the shelter naturally goes. So my request is even more urgent than when I got in contact with Steve a few weeks ago.

Please consider making a small donation. His "10 or so" listeners could really make a difference for a lot of people. Won't you help?

Why Your Donations Matter More than Ever

I don't like to ask people for money. I hate it, to be honest. I wouldn't be doing it for a cause other than this. It's real, it's personal and unlike the miracles we are waiting for with cancer cures, AIDS vaccines, MS treatments, this one doesn't require miracles. Just love and support. The world has enough of that to help

I am reprinting this in its entirity from the Boston Globe, because it pertains to the very program that I am raising money for. Recently, Casa Myrna Vazquez had to close the door of it's emergency shelter because of budget cuts. This means women and children in critical need of a place to go when they are trying to get out of abuse are being turned away.

I know what we all think when we hear of another victim of domestic violence. We think 'why doesn't she leave??' I can, and probably will, elaborate on that in a future post, but for now, imagine a world where a person does leave. And instead is turned away and sent back home. Readers, not only is it happening, it is happening at the very shelter I am trying to raise money for. If you haven't donated yet, please do. Don't do it for me. Do it for the love and the support that I know is out there. And do it because every time a woman goes home after leaving abuse she is in infinitely more danger than before she left.

----


From the Boston Globe on Monday, January 14, 2007:
Shelters can't help all fleeing abuse
Cutbacks, shift in policy narrow victims' options

Domestic violence shelters across the state are becoming overwhelmed and are increasingly turning victims away, driving some of those seeking help back to abusive partners or to the streets, according to advocates and shelter program directors.
more stories like this

The number of victims turned away from shelters more than quadrupled, from 1,374 in fiscal 2003 to 5,520 in fiscal 2005, according to Jane Doe Inc., a statewide coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence that also tracks trends.

On many days, only one bed will be available in the state for 100 people who call domestic violence hotlines seeking shelter. Sometimes, none can be found.

"It is alarming," said Deborah Collins-Gousby, interim co-executive director at Casa Myrna Vazquez in Boston, which has three residential programs and runs Safe Link, the statewide domestic violence hotline. "If you're feeling the need to flee and there is no space, what do you do?"

The problem, advocates said, has worsened in recent years for several reasons. Federal funding for shelters has ebbed; the state has had an influx of undocumented immigrants who are too afraid of police to report their abusers but will seek shelters; there is less affordable housing statewide, meaning victims often stay in shelters longer; and several shelters were forced to close after losing funding from the Department of Social Services, which in 2006 shifted its resources to community-based services, such as counseling and legal services for abuse victims, so they can remain at home.

Agencies and advocates go to great lengths trying to ensure that a victim does not have to return to an abuser. When a shelter runs out of beds and cots, victims stay at volunteers' homes temporarily. Victims are also sent to shelters in Connecticut or New Hampshire, or advised to stay with friends or relatives that the abuser does not know. If a victim must return to a home shared with an abuser, advocates work with police to provide protection, offer to help file restraining orders, and provide counseling services.

But even then, a victim might not be safe, said Brenda Lopez, domestic violence prevention coordinator at the Springfield Police Department, where officers have provided food for women and children forced to wait hours at headquarters for shelter space to open up.

Last July, Lopez recalled, a young pregnant woman who went to the hospital after her partner hit her returned home after her abuser told police he would leave the house. Two days later, he came back and beat her so severely she almost miscarried, Lopez said.

"You're punished when you go back," she said. "You're punished because you tried to leave. It also verifies for the person what their abuser has told them: 'Nobody is going to want you. Nobody is going to help you. You can't live without me.' "

Maria, a domestic abuse victim who left her husband 12 years ago, said that when she and her young daughter fled, they immediately found refuge at a shelter in Western Massachusetts. Now a victim's advocate, she said it often takes her several days, even weeks to find space for victims.
more stories like this

"It's just pathetic," said Maria, who asked that her last name and the name of the agency she works for be withheld because she does not want her abuser to find her. "It is so sad to see these women being traumatized and abused by their partners and then being traumatized and abused by the system."

Since 2003, federal funding for domestic violence programs in Massachusetts, which helped pay for shelters, has decreased. From fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2006, funding from the US Department of Health and Human Services went from $1.85 million to $1.78 million. During the same three-year period, a grant from the Department of Justice decreased from $2.8 million to $2.54 million, according to Jane Doe Inc.

In 2006, after DSS, under former governor Mitt Romney, renegotiated contracts that shifted funding from shelters, several agencies lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in shelter funding. The change forced Casa Myrna Vasquez to close its seven-bed emergency shelter.

The Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence, which provides beds for men, women, and children, lost state funding for one of its shelters, a four-bed safe home, during the rebidding. The agency found enough private funding to keep it open, but the solution may be temporary, said Cristina Lee, assistant director of advocacy services at the task force.

"We can't afford to keep it going," she said.

Officials at DSS, which funds about 90 percent of shelter beds across the state, said funding for shelters increased from $6.57 million in fiscal 2007 to $8.27 million in fiscal 2008. But officials said they had no statistics indicating how much the shelters received before fiscal 2007 because, under Romney, DSS did not break down funding for shelters for domestic violence victims.

Marilyn Anderson Chase, assistant secretary for children, youth, and families, said the agency is focusing its resources on preventing domestic violence, such as counseling children of abusers who are more likely to follow in a batterer's footsteps.

"I think everybody recognizes that having a robust shelter system is imperative," Anderson Chase said. "But I hope they would agree that our first priority is: How do we reduce incidence of domestic violence?"

It is a goal many advocates say they commend.

"More shelter beds is really not the solution," said Candace Waldron, executive director of Hawc, Help for Abused Women and their Children, in Salem. "The solution would be for community response teams that are comprehensive enough to keep victims and their children at home, while the perpetrator is held accountable for their behavior."

But until that happens, people need a place to go, she said.

"If someone is calling for shelter, you know they're at the end of the rope," Waldron said. "To say to them, 'Sorry, we don't have space,' is devastating."

The Quest for Consistency

It's my new approach. Call it my New Year's resolution. Actually, there are a few things that are making it all possible. I am getting stronger. And I am traveling less. Such beautiful things when combined.

Yes, I believe I finally have my new project and I am somewhat relieved to say it is a local project. Don't get me wrong, I love the travel. Never thought I would say that and the flights still bother me a little, but the soft benefits of life on the road are hard to beat. In many ways I will miss it. But what made it hard was keeping consistent when Monday mornings were 4am wake ups and late evenings at work only to do it all again on Thursdays. And when I could find consistency it gets challenging when things have to always wedge in suitcases. I can work it when I have to, don't get me wrong. I found my routines, but it doesn't lend itself to the true consistency I need right now. That was always hard.

The other little side of being local... I can run with people again. Oh how lovely that will be if I can work it out that I have a morning run buddy again. My long runs are fine on my own, but it would be nice to have someone to run with on the mornings when its tough to get out of bed. So with any luck that will work out for me too which should help keep me consistent and on the ball.

So today I did my 4.6 miler. It's becoming a standard, I suppose. I am not sure how I feel about it except that its predictable and I can bang it out and be good to go. While I am ramping up I think the predictability of the course is ok. So no worries there. My right knee is still a little off. My left is rocking. But its getting better and better as I go, so hopefully I am over the hump I never thought I would get beyond.

I am struggling with how slow this injury has made me. I would almost never believe I was running down into the 8s at times when now the high 10s are where I am and at that I feel like I am working it as best I can, but I have to keep telling myself how long I was away from this with any real consistency (see... there's that pesky word again). A year and a half away is hard to forget. And I don't know why I am expecting to be back at full throttle already because that's just not the way the world works. I will appreciate it more if I have to work towards it. I remember this from learning to run the first time. It is no different now.

So check this... I am at long runs of 11.27 miles and about to edge it up. I am back to half distance. And what do you know in just over a week and a half there is a NYRR half marathon coming up. It's nuts, I know. I am so far from race form, but I think it might be what I need to really get me feeling good and back in this again. I am deliberately playing it cool and telling myself not to look, but its there. Its going to be a real nail biter as to whether I will do it or not, but there is a part of me that thinks maybe. Just maybe.

Going to aim for the same loop again tomorrow. Ice the right knee again tonight and roll it out in the am and we will see how it goes. Fingers crossed for me please. I think I am starting to get to where I need to be. Yea. (its about damn time....)

Happy Tuesday.

11.27

It's a number I have such mixed feelings about. It's strange to feel both excited and disappointed in it. But it ran the gamut and it is what it is.

My plan today was to run 12. Even with a GPS its never 100% accurate until you plug it in and know where things wash out. I landed at my door thinking I had hit 10.8 but I knew it was more. I wasn't sure how much more, but the watch is usually a little under around these parts. The original plan I had started to follow called for 20. That all went to hell back a few weeks ago when 13 miles fell apart at 5 and I wound up on a city bus limping and almost in tears in pain with my knee. The plan changed dramatically that day, whether I wanted to or not. And while I am loosely still following a plan, I am kind of driving this out on my own based on where I know I am. I am pushing myself hard but trying to do so in a way that respects my body and my goal over a sheet of paper and someone elses thoughts as to where this should be. It is where it is. And if you have followed the old blog here for any length of time you know that statement is a profound paradigm shift for me. No more sticking to someone elses plan regardless of where I am at. No more rigidity. Me post injury is a lot wiser and knowing I will do better running with the possibility of being a little undertrained than full out broken. So it is what it is.

What made the 11.27 tough tho was how rough I felt at the end. Mind you my pace was EXACTLY what it was for my 5 miler the other day. To the T. And mind you I ran 11.27 miles stopping only 2x for about 20 seconds of walking up the notorious Nellie, the hill in the park, that came along and reared her ugly head at mile 10. Stupid Nellie. Miles 9.6 to 10.6, which are entirely Nellie, my elevation changes from about 62 miles above sea to 215 miles above sea. In one mile. Figure that's 153 feet over 5280 feet in one mile and it works out to a grade of 2.9%. So its not the hughest hill in the world, but on a bike that is going to cut your power output by half. (or... you gotta work twice as hard to maintain your speed to get up it.) So its no small feat for mile 9.6-10.6. And that's her grade over a whole mile. What I call Nellie is much shorter and comprises a far scarier grade that I would have to compute later if I weren't DYING AS I AM RUNNING UP HER. So 2 quick stop breaks before I coaxed myself back into it isn't so bad. My problem is that 11.27 miles isn't even half. But its the furthest I have run since early August 2006... just before the injury put me in the hole I am still climbing out of. (oooh, I totally just ended on a preposition. As the daughter of an English teacher that's really bad. But "the hole out of which I am climbing" sounds pretentious to say the least. So... sorry Dad. The blog is a living colloquialism at best.)

11.27 miles. It's both good and bad. It's a triumph of the comeback but its a reminder of how insurmountable this is starting to feel. Who comes back from a year and a half of being broken to running 26.2 miles?! Me. Cause I have to. Because whether you believe in god or God or Shiva or Allah or just the primordial ooze that put us here, I think its my reason. Who am I to whine about not being quite half way to where I need to be when I am alive, I am safe, I am free from someone elses tyranny?! I am out there running because of the faces, the names, the stories. It's funny how years and years of working at a shelter and I never quite got a chance to deal with some of it. Here's where I tell you that the workers in shelters and in courts and on hotlines and in hospitals are nothing short of gold. You never get a chance to deal with it. You see some unspeakable things that want to drop you to your knees in shock and horror and pain and you can never let that show because it can never be about you. And you learn to compartmentalize. You learn to take some of that and put it in this very well guarded little place and lock it up tight because there is always someone else who needs you to be their rock. And over time that builds. People find ways of letting it out but there is a part of it that always sticks with you. And I call that part humanity. But as I am out there on the road, painfully aware of why I am out there this time... why I need to do this right but do this... the parts of that box I never got to empty start coming out.

When I walked in the door, I think Marisa must have thought me insane. I was half disappointed with how it had gone, half doubtful I could do it, but unusually teary for it. I have 720 people I am doing this for. I have 720 names and faces I need to make proud. And that doesn't even touch you guys who read along and support me in ways I cannot even fathom.

So yeah, 11.27. Welcome back, JC.

Another Run Down about another Run Down

My goal this week has been simple. Get back out there after being sick and make sure things run smoothly.

Thus far the one thing that has been missing the most from my running has been consistency. Which is killer. I need to be out there alot. Not just long runs, but out there running alot. It's definitely a complication of life on the road, that's for sure. I will have to find a way to make it happen once the travel picks back up again, but for now it is looking like I might be here one more week before the craziness ensues, so now is my time to work it all out so I can have that consistency I need.

Last afternoon/ early evening was another run. I felt good going into it, so I was hoping it was going to be a good feeling run. Most of the day had been thunderstorms and lightning and incredible volumes of rain, so I had waited a little longer than I wanted to, but it was all good. And off I went.

The quality of the run overall was good. I can tell that my lungs and heart are really needing me to be overall a lot more consistent. My breathing just isn't as chill as I need it to be just yet. My average heart rate is still up way too high for a marathon, especially at what should be a very chill pace. This time before the injury... so like September 2006, my average heartrate was down into the low 150s and high 140s. Now its the high 160s pushing 170. Little things like that really show me how far I had come from my sedentary life but also how quickly I had lost that. It's funny to see how quickly you can lose health and how hard it is to gain it.

My left knee this morning feels awesome. Remember this is my bad knee. Or rather my worse knee. And the one with the actual, harder cho-pat strap. My right knee, on the other hand, is a little more creeky and sore this morning. With a long run looming for tomorrow (goal is 12 miles), I am thinking I should pick up another true Cho-Pat strap and see how it feels on that knee too. It is remarkable to me how good the left one feels after a run given its the worse of my 2 and the knee that made me think I would never be able to get back into this. I never expected the right one would be the problem child now. So hopefully making that little change will help.

So that's where things are standing right now. So far so good. Tomorrow's long run should be in the 40s and cloudy, so it should be decent weather to bang out 12 miles. Stay tuned.

Calling card... $5. Size 2 Huggies... $10. The opportunity to help... priceless.

I have gotten such a wonderful response to my fundraising. Slowly but surely my numbers are inching toward their goal. But I keep hearing one thing again and again that I wanted to address. "I wish I could give more."

I cannot tell you all how much all donations mean, even if they are small. So I figured one of the best ways is to give people an idea of the kinds of things those donations go to buy. There are certainly the big things, right? Keeping electricity on. Keeping heat on. Paying the mortgage on the shelter. Paying salaries (tho they are abhorrently small for anyone working on a cause like this). It can sound really overwhelming. But more often than not, donations help cover the smaller things that you never quite think about. Like calling cards. A woman in shelter can have her safety actively compromised these days by things like caller ID. It's never safe to call people from a cell phone or from a land line. As a result, shelters often have to have things like calling cards to give to women so that they can call people and places. And for a woman who hasn't made it to shelter yet sometimes those calls on the home phone can put her in more danger when the bill comes in. Little things like calling cards can be instrumental in just day-to-day survival.

Diapers. Seriously. I remember going to the store when I was working at my shelter to buy diapers. All kinds of sizes in as many as I could get my little hands on. You never know who might be coming into shelter and you always have to have things like diapers and bottles and teething rings and what-have-you on hand. (Imagine the look on the face of the cashier when I showed up with a carriage full of diapers looking like I must have septuplets at home.)

I can't even begin to tell you how much very single dollar goes to work at a place like a shelter. It's the kind of thing that would make the the folks over at Tightwad Central stand up and take notice. So to those of you who have donated and worry that you wish you could donate more... please understand how grateful I am and this program is for each.and.every donation. It is helping more than you could ever know.

Now as for the down and dirty of the running part (aka, the easy part), things are going... ok. Not great, but not off course or anything. I wound up getting horribly sick on New Years' night. Yep, that's right. I couldn't even claim my puking was due to excessive consumption of festive beverages. Nay, my friends, I came home from what little enthusiasm I could muster that evening (I knew I was feeling off) to get sick and be down for the count for a bit. It was a weird little bug. Part cold, part liquified innards. Not good for running as you can imagine. Not such a great way to spend my 2nd week of vacation either. So the running took a back seat for a bit until my body and lungs felt up for the road. Now we are back to the road. So I hit the streets yesterday, which was good. It's been unseasonably warm out here (*coughGLOBALWARMINGcough*) so it was kinda nice and kinda creepy to be feeling warm along the way. My lungs did ok, but I was a little coughy thereafter. All good tho because the kicker was my knees felt good. I've been trying 2 different kinds of cho-pat straps on my 2 knees. Didn't mean for it to work that way but they only had one of each and I needed to try it out. Both wind up being very different and I wish I could combine the two into one awesome one, but so far so good. This one goes on my left knee because it is a little harder. But its velcro kinda brushes against the back of my knee and over 26.2 miles that's gonna be painful. But its harder than the other so it holds my knee in place a little better. This little bad boy goes on my right knee, which is the better knee, honestly. Its a softer piece holding my knee so it doesn't have as much support but it doesn't scratch, which is nice. Combine the two and I would be in heaven. For now we will see how I do.

So running is going ok. I am heading out again tomorrow for more fun. I had wanted to go out today to try and get my running a little more frequent and consistent, but given I have a long run this weekend, I didn't want to push the overall mileage total through the roof so quick, since there is that whole 10% Rule I don't want to mess with. So tomorrow it is and hopefully my lungs will be in even better shape after all the sickness works its way out of me.

So that's where I am at. Please keep the donations coming. If you popped over here just off a google search (especially the person who found me using the search string "smoking baroness la bondage"), consider throwing a few bucks to my cause so you can do your good deed today. You'll be pleased ya did.

Happy Thursday, all.

It's Time

It's time to unveil my crazy plan. It's time to get personal and maybe a little deep and all kindsa whatever else. But it's time. The road brought me here and it brought me here for a reason. So read, bear with me, and maybe help me make something big happen.

I told you all I am training for something. And I think I let it slip that it's a marathon. But it's not just any marathon. It's the marathon. And it's the cause. My cause. The reason my heart beats some days. And the reason it doesn't. I am running the Boston Marathon out of a love I found in me many years before I found the love of running. I am running for the love of survivorship.

I am running the Boston Marathon to raise money to help survivors of domestic abuse. I don't often get personal on this blog... or at least outside my crazy training life personal... but this time I am gonna.

Back several years ago I had the honor, the pleasure, the challenge, the heartbreak, the heartwarm of working at a battered women's shelter. It was, to steal a phrase, the toughest job I could ever love. For years I would leave my day to day office job and drive over to a nondescript little house, in a nondescript little town in Massachusetts, to be reminded time and time again what life really meant to me. I worked overnights at a shelter for women and their children fleeing domestic abuse, rape and ritual abuse. I would leave my desk and wind up in police stations, hospitals, bus stations and our shelter to have the chance to provide one single moment in time in someones road to becoming a survivor. It's a powerful journey if you have ever had the honor of being there for it. It will challenge every fiber you have in you and at the end of that day it will leave you in awe of the incredible strength the world has in it.

Over 5 years, I worked with... at best guess 720 women and their children. I worked at a shelter that had beds for 4 women and their children. We were never without a guest. I answered thousands of calls to an 800 number and helped women plan how to make themselves safe... whether it was for a single night or for the rest of their lives. I held hands with them, I shed tears with them and little by little I found a part of my own self in them I never knew existed. These women and their children gave me a blessing they may never know. Every day I feel truly honored to have been there alongside so many of them to share in what was a horribly painful experience that some never walk away from.

Over the years I have known people who have gone on and rebuilt their lives. I have known people who have gone back to their abusers. I have known people whose names I have seen on the news as the latest homicide victim. I've sat on swings in the rain with women who haven't been allowed out of the house for more than a dozen years.

If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you know that it's been more than a year since I took to the road for a real, honest-to-goodness race. Way back in September 2006, I got injured. Really injured. Because I was a little too stupid to think about how to run right. I learned a hard lesson as it kept me away from what became my passion for more than a year.

Several months ago I found out that one of the sister shelters to the one I used to work for was hosting it's last ever Boston Marathon charity team. I was invited to apply. Several of the people I had worked with at my own shelter have since moved on to this bigger one and who was I to say no. One of the things that has been the hardest for me since leaving Boston for New York was giving up those overnights at the shelter. They gave me such perspective on the world. Most days I feel like I got more from the many women I knew than they may have gotten from me. I feel blessed to have shared their journey and now I wanted to give them something back.

This year, I am running for all of them. Each day I go out for my long run their faces are in my head. Its tough to not find the motivation to get through 15 miles on the road when I think how much harder their journeys have been. I am asking you all to help me make this journey for these women and children. I am setting a lofty goal for my fund raising, to say the least. I want to raise $50 for each of the (at least) 720 women I had the pleasure and honor of knowing. I have to say the "at least" part because I know over 5 years, 4 beds and 3 months stay that's the minimum... but oftentimes people didn't even get to stay with us that long as they had to move on to avoid being found. That $50 in memory of each of those women comes to a total of $36,000. Sounds crazy, huh? I agree. I don't know if I can do it, but my heart tells me I need to.

So here is my plea. And my fundraising website.
http://www.firstgiving.com/runjcrun
Help me get there. It will be a long road. And to be honest, I don't care about time or speed or anything for this one. I care about just doing it for some incredible women, some incredible children, some incredible courage. When you get a chance to see the strength it takes to run from abuse, running 26.2 is a walk in the park.