Promises worth keeping

A few simple promises form the backbone of the whole Team in Training concept. When all of the promises are kept, everything works and everyone ends up happy. However, if any of them are broken, the whole thing goes sour faster than milk left out on the porch in July.

Those promises are more or less as follows:

1. The person signing up for Team in Training will raise money for blood cancer research.
2. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society will use that money responsibly to fund research and help patients.
3. Team in Training will provide a support system to help the participant raise money and train safely for the race.
4. The participant will do the best possible job of training so that he/she can successfully complete the race.
   

The best ideas are often very simple ones. Four promises between three different parties are the engine that makes Team in Training work.

I can't do much about #2, but my own research would seem to indicate that promise is being kept. Promise #3 is being kept. The Team in Training group's informed and helpful responses to my questions about long-run fueling proved that my coaches and teammates are an extremely valuable resource.

Promise #1 has been kept, thanks to at least 80 people (yes, 80, I counted!) out there who generously donated in response to a letter from me, or entered their dogs in my agility fun run last weekend, or bought raffle tickets and donated raffle prizes. When the donation meter finally catches up with everything I've sent in, it should read $3,563.69. That includes the final total of $1,713.19 raised from all sources from last weekend's agility fundraiser and an additional $35.00 check I just received.

So it's not so much that I kept promise #1--all of you out there banded together and delivered it to me, a package full of caring generosity tied with a ribbon of compassion and handed down the line from one person to the next like water on a bucket brigade, until it was full to overflowing and placed gently in my arms. Along the way, you told me about your colleagues, your parents, your grandmas, your sisters and brothers, your husbands and wives who battled blood cancer and won, or fought bravely and lost, and now I carry all their names and stories entwined with my own. All of them, and all of you, run with me now.

The final promise is mine and mine alone. I must keep the promise that made me embark on this journey in the first place--a promise to my mother, to all of you, and to everyone you honor and remember: to gift the absolute best that my body, mind, and spirit can deliver over 13.1 miles of pavement in salute on a misty May morning. Make no mistake, that is precisely what it is: a salute, and one I am proud to give. I must do justice to your kindness, your generosity, and your faith in me and my cause by making sure I toe the starting line just 78 days from now. I must train as intelligently and diligently as possible, for as John Bingham so helpfully points out, you cannot make it to the finish line unless you first make it to the starting line. True enough.

To get to the starting line, I have to take the best possible care of myself, for there are at least 80 of you who now own a piece of me. Some good examples of what that means:

• No more working until midnight.
  
• No more weekend agility after March 7.
  
• No staying up late playing around on Facebook or the Internet.
• Eating as much fuel as possible and as little junk as possible.
• Listening carefully to my body and being prepared to cut back or skip a workout if I am excessively fatigued or achy, or if I am sick or injured.
• Putting my full attention and concentration into every workout. No half-assed phoning it in.
• Eating and drinking for optimal fueling before, during, and after each workout. (I so broke that promise yesterday! Sorry.)
• Managing my time properly so I never have to skip a workout because I can't fit it into my schedule.
• Doing all stretches prescribed by my osteopath each and every day and icing any problem spots as necessary.
• Getting professional help pronto if I have a problem that does not resolve quickly.

You came through for me. Now it is my turn to come through for you.

Ten rules to live by, 78 days to go...and one promise to keep.