2013 Goofy Challenge: The day before the Race(s)

Wow.  The day finally here.  6 months of training, a little over 500 miles and it all comes down to this weekend.   It’s a race weekend!!   I’m here sitting at the poolside of my resort, and having an emotional moment when I look back from the beginning of the time when I committed myself to do this race.  The health challenge that I have to endure in the past six months, the outpouring support that I have from everybody and the determination that I have to get here are so huge and meant a lot to me.  I won.   Whatever happen tomorrow and Sunday, I have won.   THAT meant the world to me.

I get even emotional when I look a bit further when I decided to buy a pair of running shoes and did my first run.   It was August 2, 2011.   By the end of that first miles when I went out and run for the first time, I become a runner.    18 months later — I finished 3 (three) 10K races, 4 (four) Half-marathon and 1 (one) full marathon.   By Sunday, I (hopefully) will finish another half AND full marathon.

I have many people asked me “Are you ready”?   Well, I am as ready as I can be.   My last long run is 22 miles and I felt great.   I did my training the best I can, despite of the health challenge, awful treatment that I have to endure, injury and illness — I made it here.   I am ready.

I have a long list of people to thank you.   A very, very long list.  It start with my husband, John, who constantly support me and challenge me.  He rode his bike with me during my training run, in cold and rain, heat and sunshine and drove me to every single one of my team practice run and wait patiently until I was done.  He kept me focus during my treatment to my goal and constantly reminded me that I am bigger than my challenge.  He’s my biggest supporter and I love him dearly.    My two daughters, who are my biggest cheerleaders and waited for me on the finish line of my races with the biggest smile (I miss them dearly this weekend as they are not coming with me to the race weekend) and my friends, from the Team and Training runners, coaches and mentors, to my SQLFamily, a technical community that I am so proudly belong to,  who kept me on my toes and held me accountable with my commitment when I really, really don’t want to go out and running.

Special thank you for those who believe in my cause and donate to my fundraising.    Your donation made a different.   I am a living proof of what the Leukemia and Lymphoma Socienty can do.   They funded research for clinical trial for future cure and one of those medicine is the one that made it possible for me to do all this challenge.

My corporate sponsor, LobsterPot Solutions and InfoAdvisors, for Rob Farley and Karen Lopez for generously sponsor me for this run.   You both are not only my corporate sponsor, but my great friends and I appreciate your generosity very much.   From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

For those who want to get a live tracking of my race, you can register your email/phone number via the runner tracking tools here.   Just put my name and it will pull my registration.   My bib number is 25892.    The other way to support me during the race is by following me at Twitter (@YanniRobel) or if you are my Facebook friends, you can keep an eye of my wall status.   I will run with my phone that will have both runmeter and runtastic app with me.   Runmeter app will post my mileage every 2 miles and every tweet and facebook message you send me will be read to me via my phone.   So tweet me, message me, tell me I’m awesome and I kick some butt, and tell me especially after mile 18 or so that I can do this.   That I have done so much and so far that I will finish this race(s) because I probably will question myself.    Runtastic app will give you a live map of my course, and the exact position of where I will be.    You have to watch out for that link on my twitter stream though to see it.

Prayers are always welcome as I will always need it for my strength and injury-free race.

This is it, people.   It’s game time.

2013 Goofy Challenge: I’m still going!

Wow.   I’m a major slacker.   No, not in the running front cause I’ve been running and training and running and more running to prepare myself for this race.   It’s documenting my training.  It’s updating this blog.  I’m big slacker for that.

A lot of things happen since, well, week 9.   I was facing with serious health challenge, took some serious time and did serious thing to battle it, came out okay and still standing,  kept on running,  drove 14 hours to San Francisco to run half-marathon with my good friends, twisted my ankle (again),  ran 10k, and managed to ran 159 miles in the month of December!

I did my longest run last Saturday.   TWENTY TWO miles of awesome.   I felt great the entire time, did 2:30-1 run/walk and averaging at 12:10 pace.   Not too shabby!   That run just boast my confidence and I know I can do this.

This week and next are my taper week.    I will still have 30 miles schedule between last Sunday and Sat (yes, that’s taper week) but no more long, long run.   This Saturday we’ll only have to do a short 7-miler.   See what I did there?    I just called 7-miles run as a short run.   Heh

Well, I’m excited.   Above are the medals for the race.   The donald is for half marathon, the mickey is for marathon and the goofy, well, it’s only if you complete both.

On the fundraising front — I’m still short for my goal.    For those who want to support me (run with me in spirit), I welcome you to join me via my fundraising site:   http://tinyurl.com/GoodyChallenge

NINE DAYS to the first race!

2013 Goody Challenge: Week 9 – Disneyland Half Marathon

Week 9 Recap:

What a week!   It’s a vacation week at Disneyland as well as my half-marathon!   Even though I skip one of my mid-week run, I didn’t feel like I’m slacking off due to many miles of walking I did around the park.    The race itself was a lot of fun!   It was Disney race after all, so you know that they were going all out to make sure the runners had a great time.

9 weeks down, 19 weeks to go!

Plan for this week

Tues: Run for 45 minutes

Thur: Run for 45 minutes

Sun: Half Marathon!

Tuesday 8/28

Drew and I met up after work for a quick run.   She took me to a different trail this time, which turn out to be the same trail that I ran every week, it just more east.   I didn’t feel too hot as I had cramp and my stomach was giving me all kind of grief but I ran anyway.   I kept up with her for the first 20 minutes and I told her to ran without me as I just need to run slower than normal and took more walk break.   I finished 3.16 in 40 minutes.

Thursday 8/30

I skipped the run, but I walked around at Disneyland Park all day.   My fitbit indicated that I walked for 8 miles so I was calling it good

Sunday 9/2

Race day!   I woke up at 3:30am and was having major abdominal cramp.   I was not happy camper and really didn’t want to get up and move.    I slowly got up and put my running gear on, ate breakfast and head out.   Our hotel located 5 minutes from the start line, which was awesome.    I met Kendra, Brent and Ben at the corral.   After the usual ‘before race’ photo, and it’s our corral turn to start.

First 6 miles went by fast and I was having a great time.   I paced myself really well and felt strong.   The sun started to rise and it got really warm, really fast.   I slowed down a bit due to my cramp and the warm weather, plus it was really, really crowded in some area of the course.   Disney always organized an awesome race.  There’s a lot of supporter, cast member, cheer leaders and you will get more high-five during this race than you can even imagined!

I saw my husband and my girls standing on the bleacher with their signs and cowbell shortly before the finish line.   It was SO awesome to see them and my girls was smiling cheek-t0-cheek!   I crossed the finish line shortly after, felt strong and happy.   I PR’ed my last half on the same course by12 minutes!!   It was an awesome day and absolutely a fun race!

Fundraising

I hit $6,000!   This is so awesome and I am just amazed on how generous people are!   I’m not done yet, and visit my fundraising page for more info at http://tinyurl.com/GoofyChallenge