Any Women Warriors Want to Try a Triathlon? (or 5k)

Hi you awesome women of the Semi-colons!

If there are any of you that are secretly harboring a desire to embrace your inner athletic goddess and up the ante on your exercise regime, there is a Women's Only Triathlon hosted by Iron Girl, and IF you're a cancer survivor they will waive your entry fee ($95!!)if you write them about your cancer experience. Then you join the Aflac Team Courage.

Here's mine:

I lost my sister to adenocarcinoma of the small intestine when she was only 33 and I was 30. Her baby was only 5 months old when she died. To have carried a baby in the face of terminal cancer was the epitome of bravery to me. We had no prior family history and every doctor told us how rare it was. And not once did a doctor suggest that we sisters get tested.

Imagine my horror when 9 years later I was experiencing the same symptoms. And my baby was only 18 months old. A colonoscopy at the Mayo Clinic confirmed my worst fear. Same cancer, different location. My tumor was adenocarcinoma of the sigmoid colon. Stage III colon cancer at 39?! Wasn't that a farty old man's disease? Surely not active crunchy granola chicks with 5 kids and a hippy hubby got diseases like colon cancer!

Watching my sister die a slow and painful death gave me a perspective of disease and healing that set my own course for my cure; and it wasn't going to include the adjuvant chemotherapy that my oncologist advised. I had watched helplessly while the cancer and chemo alternately ravaged her body until the once muscular and athletic girl/woman was reduced to skin and bones. There had to be a different way.

When cancer looms it seems to be the modus operandi to use words like battle and smart bomb and magic bullet and destroy and obliterate. I felt like my body was becoming a battlefield and here I was a nursing mother who loved to x-country ski in the winter and ride my bike in the summer. This was a war that made me want to head for Canada and claim philosophical differences. Could I dare to burn my draft card?

After taking a deep cleansing breath, I decided to take a more Zen approach to having cancer and I embraced the disease and what it could teach me. Rather than get chemotherapy infusions, I opted for what I have come to call CHEMIA or "juice of the plant." I dusted off my juicer, bought 25 pounds of carrots and began my healing process that included acupuncture, massage, Traditional Chinese Medicine, yoga, exercise and a whole lot of prayer.

That winter my husband encouraged me to renew my love of running sled dogs. And while we in the hinterlands of the North can recreate all winter, my "sleddies" needed exercise in the off season as well. Running them up and down our country road became as much a part of my healing as the 3 quarts of organic veggie juice that I drank daily.

Now, running is not my forte. I'm a walker, a fast walker, but not usually a runner. Well, Siberian huskys are not walkers, they're runners. So off we'd go with me tethered to two drop dead gorgeous Sibes running....being dragged down the road. Eventually I realized that I was getting faster and stronger and building endurance. The first day I could barely huff it to my next door neighbor's mailbox (granted, it was over four tenths of a mile away), but within weeks I was running the 2.5 miles to the end of our road. The day that I ran the whole 5 miles nonstop was the day I KNEW I was going to beat this cancer. It was also the day that I knew I had to run a race to prove to myself that I could live!

They started as 5k's. Since I had already checked off every item on my Bucket List and lived beyond The Five Year Plan, I had to up the ante. The 5k's then progressed to sprint triathlons. This chick was back in business! To date I have run 3 outdoor sprint triathlons and 2 indoor ones. But my longest and most important run has been my 8 1/2 years of surviving, no, strike that, LIVING FULLY post cancer.




Here's the website in case any of you want to give it a whirl. If you raise $$ for a children's cancer hospital you get extra goodies in your goody bags.

http://www.irongirl.com/Contact_Us/Aflac_Team_Courage.htm

Once you sign up there are websites you can go to (beginnertriathlete.com) to help you on your training.

Any takers????

Wouldn't it be great to have a bunch of us Semi-colons running around the country doing something like this? AND for a good cause!(scouty??? you with me girlfriend?)

Think about it! If I could do it when I was 25 pounds overweight anyone could do it!

peace, emily