Wary of the Traffic

This past Wednesday morning while running in Birmingham, I was very nearly hit by a a speeding car. It swerved around a corner and zoomed toward me in the pedestrian crossing. I was somehow able to lunge to the side of the road before stumbling over the curb and going down hard. 

I've got a few nasty scrapes. And, I'm sore all over. My shoulder is particularly achy several days later. But, other than that, I count myself very fortunate.

You hear about stuff like this all the time. Thankfully, I'm back out on the roads--I've lost a couple of days of my scheduled training for the St. Jude Marathon and I'm no where near where I need to be on my long runs (my shoulder starts really hurting at about mile 4, so I am curtailing the length of my workouts for the time being).

You can be sure though: I will be far more wary than I ever have been before this brush with disaster.

This Is Why I Run

As if I needed yet another reason to run for the kids of St. Jude, a remarkable young lady like Hillary comes along. 

On the first Saturday in December I will join all the other St. Jude Heroes running the 26.2 mile course in Memphis. But, as great an accomplishment that will be for us, it pales in comparison to the race (both figurative and literal) that Hillary has run. 

She recently became the first St. Jude patient to cover the distance of a marathon while receiving inpatient care at the hospital.

Hooked up to fluids and an IV pole, with a mask covering her face to protect her from infection, Hillary walked the hallways and corridors in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. When she turned the final corner, a crowd of onlookers broke into loud cheers and applause. With confetti flying around her, Hillary hugged her mother, then members of her care team.

Wow. What an inspiration. What a story.

Keeping Going

"Motivation is what gets you going. Habit is what keeps you going." Jim Ryun

The St. Jude Memphis Marathon

In just a few weeks I will be running the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis. Once again, I will be running the 26.2 miles for a very special cause. I will be raising funds for essential cancer research. If you'd like to make a pledge, you can do so online right here on my St. Jude fundraising site. My goal is to raise $1000 for St. Jude Children's Hospital this year. Won't you help?

The reason I picked St. Jude as the focus of my fundraising efforts is actually very simple to explain: this nationally renowned children's charity hospital is one of the most remarkable and effective medical research institutions anywhere in the world. St. Jude has treated children from across the United States and from more than 70 foreign countries. And yet ability to pay is never an issue because St. Jude is the only pediatric research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. Not one penny! Not ever! Zip! Zilch! Nada!

The treatment of children and the onging research at St. Jude includes work in bone marrow transplantation, chemotherapy, the biochemistry of normal and cancerous cells, radiation treatment, blood diseases, resistance to therapy, viruses, hereditary diseases, infectious diseases, and psychological effects of catastrophic illnesses. Vital work, indeed. And again, always made available to families regardless of their financial means.

Obviously, this kind of care is very expensive. Won't you help me support the remarkable ministry of St. Jude to children and families battling cancer? Please donate now and come back to visit my St. Jude site often. Tell others about what I'm trying to do. Learn how my effort to help find cures and save lives is going. I need your support to help me reach my fundraising goal for the kids of St. Jude. Oh yes, and do pray for my training!

It costs $1.8 million a day to operate St. Jude. Did you know that 70% of the funds come from the folks like you and me? That means your donation, no matter what the size, will help!

How your donation helps:

• Thanks to ordinary volunteers and donors like us, no family ever pays St. Jude for anything, including lodging, food and travel.
• St. Jude will continue to improve treatment of childhood cancer and other deadly diseases through its groundbreaking research.
• For every child treated at St. Jude, thousands more have been saved worldwide through St. Jude discoveries.

Thank you so much for your support!