A new adventure

It has been awhile since I've posted, but a new adventure on the horizon provides a good reason to revive the blog. I have decided to test my body's endurance with a 100 mile race in the mountains of Colorado. I've chosen the Grand Mesa 100 on July 25 as my test.

A view from the course.

To catch people up, I had surgery in 2012 to remove some tumors that had been kept in check for a couple of years through the miracle of a clinical trial drug. I had a bit of a rough time recovering from that. To most people I probably looked fine, but I am used to being able to run and bike to my heart's content and it was hard for me to get back to that point after the surgery. I did start doing some events the past couple of years, but it wasn't until sometime this past year that I really felt like I was back to 100%. This past January Lazarex & Team for Life invited me to speak at their pre-race lunch for the Star Wars Half Marathon.  While there I ran both the 10K on Saturday and the Half Marathon on Sunday. I don't keep great records of my PRs, but if these weren't both PRs they had to have been darn close. That really gave me the confidence that I was back and ready to train for some more serious races. So, here we are a little over 1 month away. I've done some good training, but I still waver back and forth on how I feel about this. Sometimes I'm over confident and thinking that this should be a cake walk and other times wondering how I'm going to survive being out on the course for 20 or more hours. I have made a commitment and I'll keep forging ahead doing everything that I can to prepare for what is bound to be my biggest test yet.

A sight from my training.

In order to give this some added meaning in hopes of spurring me on during those inevitable times during the race I am raising money for Lazarex. I'm hoping to reach 100 donors, one for every mile of the race. If you feel so inclined please donate, but no matter what please share my story so that others know how important it is to support clinical trials. At the very least they advance science, but often they help people that have no other options. Unfortunately each trial is only available in a small number of locations and often patients that need them are forced to travel regularly in order to participate. Lazarex helps people find those trials where ever they may be and then pays for them to make the trips needed to participate. 
You can donate to Lazarex on my behalf on my donation page