It's Time

20 years ago this week, I came from college after getting the call from my Dad that it was “time.”  Mom was home with us, resting in a hospital bed in the living room.  Dear friends and family filled the house.  There were a lot of stories, a lot of laughs and many more tears as we all spent our last days with Patty.  On April 21st at 10:45 pm, Mom died peacefully--her hands being held by those that loved her so much.

That night, Regan, Sean, and I went for a walk around the neighborhood, arms linked.  We said confidently that Mom would keep close to one another for the rest of our lives.  After that, we saw two shooting stars.  And, she followed through on her promise.

Mom certainly has her way with messages.  After completing my first AND second Boston Marathons, Mom treated me to a beautiful rainbow spanning the sky.  Mom’s wink to me.

Today, 20 years later, I am up early.  I slept restlessly, looking at the clock off and on since 3 am.  Again, it is “time.”  I am headed up to Boston.  

Unlike 20 years ago, I am anticipating this trip with enormous excitement.  On Monday, April 21st, I will be taking on my 5th Boston Marathon in memory of Patty.  Last year, I picked up a new buddy to honor, Jonathan Smyth.  Jonathan and Patty are buried 2 headstones apart in Wadsworth Cemetery in Sudbury, MA.  

Mom and Jonathan fought the good fight against cancer with the help of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  As part of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team for 5 race seasons, I have raised over $50,000 (and counting...).  For this, I am immensely proud.

If you have contributed this year or in the past, Thank You.  Keep me in your thoughts and prayers on Monday.  My bib # is 26821 in you feel so inclined to track my progress.  

Boston College: My experience

After my graduation from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in 1990, I started my college career at Boston College.  It wasn’t without great debate.  I had my heart set on a university that I didn’t get into.  Then, I sent my deposit to another university that was out of state.  After a few weeks, I chickened out about going out of state and was able to secure my spot at BC.  I was pleased with this outcome and felt good to be attending school with a number of my friends from L-S.

Boston College is a very popular school and has often been challenged to accommodate its entire freshman class with on-campus housing.  I am not sure what the story is now, but back in my day if your family home was within a 30-mile radius of campus, you were not given priority for on campus housing.  Our alternatives were to commute from home or to live in an off-campus apartment.  Since commuting from home did not sound like very much fun, I elected to shack up with my dear L-S friend, Erica Verville Mawn.

Erica and I found a great 3-bedroom apartment on Crosby Road, a side street adjacent to campus.  We were able to secure other freshman roommates, most importantly our forever-friend-to-be, Heidi Burr Thomas.  By the time school started, Crosby Road was fully rented, furnished and ready to go!

Freshman year is a big transition for most 18-year-olds and it certainly was for me.  Living off campus was not all it was cracked up to be.  Despite having off-campus friends in other apartments in the area, my Crosby Road roomies and I felt out of the loop from the other on-campus freshman and found it challenging to make important early connections.  Even though my family was 45 minutes away, I was homesick.  For better or for worse, I made many trips to and from Sudbury which may have affected my ability to settle in to my new college home.  And I certainly wasn’t killing it academically.

The long and the short of it is…BC just wasn’t for me.  Or Erica.  Or Heidi.  Once the doors closed at Crosby Road after freshman year, we all eventually found different alma maters for which we were better suited and were better suited for us.  I definitely left BC with a bad taste in my mouth. 

When I ran my first Boston Marathon in 2008, I was unfamiliar with the race route as I hadn’t lived in MA for over 15 years.  I knew it started in Hopkinton and ended on Boylston Street in Boston, but had little awareness about what I would pass on my way.  As I trotted along, I recognized different spots and landmarks.  The Framingham train station.  Speen Street in Natick. The Gap in downtown Wellesley.  As I got closer to Newton and turned onto Commonwealth Avenue, a pit grew in my stomach as this is the road I traveled so many times from BC to home and back again.

Commonwealth Avenue (Comm. Ave.) is also home to the Boston Marathon’s infamous Heartbreak Hill.  It is the last of Newton’s four hills, which begin at mile 16 and end at mile 22.  I had been anticipating these hills with much anxiety.  It’s not that I am uncomfortable with hills--I run a lot of hills throughout my training.  But tackling hills this far into a run is a challenge.  I put my head down and eyes to the ground; not daring to look ahead for fear that the hills would never come to an end. 

Finally the pavement flattened out.  Spectators were wildly cheering and waving signs saying, “You’ve reached the top!”  I raised my head and wouldn’t you know it?  I was smack dab in the center of Boston College.  I passed the Crosby Road street sign.  I saw the prestigious campus to my right.  I saw thousands of enthusiastic BC Eagles enjoying themselves on the sidelines. I had made it!  Relief.  Pride.  Satisfaction. 

I have run this race 4 (almost 5) times.  I am now familiar with the course and know what to expect along the way.  I can anticipate the parts of the run that are harder for me than others.  Now, when I turn on to Comm. Ave., I am filled with determination and adrenaline, not sour feelings and dread.  For the first time in 20 years, Boston College brings me feelings of great joy and accomplishment!  In the language of social media, I “like,” BC.  (Thumbs up emoticon).

Praise You.

This year will be the 20th anniversary of my mom’s death.  Amazingly enough, it falls on the same day as the 2014 Boston Marathon--April 21st.  Over the past 20 years, I have had many instances when I feel certain that my mom is present.  Too many to count.  Sometimes it is in the form of dreams. Sometimes it is a strong feeling in my stomach. Other times, it happens when I hear a particular song.  

Whenever the song “Praise You” by Fat Boy Slim plays when I am running, I feel like my mom and I are giving each other high fives.  The chorus goes like this:  “We've come a long long way together, through the hard times and the good. I have to celebrate you baby, I have to praise you like I should.”  I feel like she is saying this to me and I feel like I am saying it to her.  

Living almost half of my life with out her has been quite an adventure.  MANY bumps in the road.  Lots of tears and heartache.  But somehow, I have gotten myself to the age of 41--married, three kids, great job--so much to be grateful for.  When I hear that song, I think she is saying, “Way to go, Aim!” 

When I listen to that song, I also think of my mom’s life experience.  She lived a full, rich life before her death at age 47.  She and my Dad celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary just weeks before she died.  She has 3 amazing kids who love each other dearly.  She has so many people that care about her--friends who have become such important people in my life.  It makes me sad to think about what she has missed out on over the past 20 years.  Weddings, grandchildren, retirement.  Life.

For these reasons, I want to Praise her like I should.

XO

All Running...All of the Time

A friend just asked me what I was doing this weekend.  My answer—running. 

Really, that’s about it.  Oh, and napping.  I am in the thick of my training.  Every weekend for the next few weeks, I will be running back-to-back long runs.  This weekend, I will run 12 miles Saturday and 14 miles Sunday.  Training reaches its peak the weekend of 3/29, when my longest run is 22 miles.

Training for a marathon really is a part-time job.  Thankfully I have a cooperative, supportive family that puts up with me while I am gone running for hours and then gone for a few more hours napping.

I wanted share two entries from my blog last year.  Enjoy!

 Here are 10 things that you may not have known about my mom, Patty Shields.

10. Patty always wanted to be an archeologist.

9. Patty liked to eat vanilla ice cream out of a cantaloupe.

8. Patty loved Laura Ashley.

7. Patty did not like roller coasters, but liked rides that spun.

6. Patty wanted a shamrock tattoo.

5. Patty liked black licorice.

4. Patty and I loved to watch Days of Our Lives.

3. Patty loved going to the movies.

2. One of Patty’s favorite flowers was the daisy.

1. Mom always encouraged me to “Just Do It.”

Here are 10 important things to know about Jonathan (courtesy of his mom, Marie Smyth):

1. Jonathan loved Legos. 

2. Jonathan was featured in an issue of Lego Mania Magazine.

3. Jonathan loved fried clam strips at Nancy's on the dock in Oak Bluffs, MA. on Martha's Vineyard.

4. Jonathan had a cute little beauty mark on the left side of his head that you could only see when he lost all of his hair during chemotherapy.

5. Jonathan loved golf and baseball and was a Red Sox fan.

6. Jonathan posed swinging a golf club on a brochure for the Jimmy Fund golf tournaments.

7. Jonathan loved watching Nickelodeon and especially the show "Rugrats".

8. Jonathan was born on May 4, 1990, weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces and was 21 inches.

9. Jonathan loved beanie babies, trucks, race cars, and drawing pictures of sharks and rockets.

10. Jonathan and his mom rescued a baby snapping turtle from a Dunkin Donuts parking lot.  Jonathan named him "Little Dude". Little Dude lived in a tank during the winter in Jonathan's first grade classroom as their class pet. In the spring, Little Dude was released to the pond behind our house in Sudbury. Mom says she thinks they saw him a few times over the years after his release.

XO

The Thing About Goals...

Goals are important.  They keep us moving forward.  When training for a marathon, I like to break the ultimate goal (26.2 miles) in to 18 weeks of smaller goals.  Over time, the weekly mileage increases to condition us for race day.  I keep a print out of my training schedule handy and find it very satisfying to cross off my daily runs/workouts.  A visible, tangible record of my accomplishments for the week.

For the Dana Farber Marathon Challenge team, my teammates and I have an additional goal.  We are charged with raising money to benefit the Claudia Adams Barr program in Innovative Cancer Research.  In a nutshell, the Barr Program is critical for conducting basic research, which is not eligible for federal funding until well along in proof of principle. The program enables leading-edge, highly-innovative research up to the point that it may be possible to attract government or private support. Barr Investigator awards help advance the professional development of Dana-Farber’s newly appointed Instructors and Assistant Professors who otherwise lack seed funding to test hypotheses and bring promising studies forward in completely new areas of research.

I am proud to report that, over the course of my 4 DFMC races and my 2014 fundraising to date, I have raised $50,367.55!!! 2008: $10,245.55; 2010: $10,001.00; 2012: $13,686.00; 2013: $15,440.00 I am more proud of these totals than any of my marathon finishing times.  Losing a loved one to cancer is a very powerless feeling.   It has been so amazing to actually DO SOMETHING to honor my Mom and my In-Memory Partner,  Jonathan Smyth.

So…this all being said…I have set a lofty goal for my 2014 DFMC fundraising--$15,000!  We have done it before and we can do it again!  As of today 2/28/14, my Barr Program total is $995.00.  I have a lot of work to do over the next 1 month 20 days and 21 hours!  I realize that, in reaching out to you,  I am “tapping the same well” as I have over the past 4 races.  You have all been so generous!   If you can, please consider a small donation to help me reach my goal! 

And if you have already donated, THANK YOU!

XO

Dreadmill

Three treadmill workouts in a row.  Truly dreadful.  The “dreadmill” (props to my friend Dawn for that moniker).  This winter is KILLING ME!  It is supposed to be WARM this weekend (if you call 40s warm), so I will get outside and finally get in some outdoor mileage.
I wanted to pass along some exciting news! First, a little history…  The DFMC has a program in which runners can partner with families who have lost a child to cancer and run in their memory.  Last year, I partnered with the Smyths—a family formerly from Sudbury, MA (like myself).  Their son Jonathan lost his battle with neuroblastoma in January, 1998 and is buried 2 gravestones down from my mother, Patty Shields, in Wadsworth Cemetery in Sudbury.
   
Last marathon season was such a special experience as I had the support of not only all of my friends and family, but of the friends and family of the Smyths. Marie, Jonathan’s mom, and I maintained regular contact over the course of my training and I was thrilled to have Katie Smyth (Jonathan’s older sister), a graduate student at MIT, as my guest at the DFMC pre-race pasta party.
 
For the good news… Katie Smyth has joined the DFMC team this year!  Although the Smyths have been part of the Partner/In Memory program since 1997, this is the first time the family has had a runner of its own!  I am so excited for Katie as this will certainly be an amazing year to run her 1st Boston in memory of her brother. I am crossing my fingers that Marie and family can make the trip to Boston this year to cheer us on!
 
Please keep Katie, Jonathan, Patty and I in your thoughts over the next few months as we gear up for April 21st!

XO AMY

After The Apocalyspe

This past week has been a challenge.  Due to an ice storm, my family lost power, heat and hot water for 3 full days.  Kids were out of school for three days.  Scrambling to get to work.  Strategizing how to even get a shower.  Running has not been on the top of my priority list.

“Flexible” is not my middle name.  I like things to be a certain way.  I like predictability.  I often eat the same thing every day.  When it comes to marathon training, I follow the same training schedule year after year to a “T.”  This training season has been humbling.  Rain, Ice, Slush, Snow, Black Outs.  Mother Nature, not Amy, is at the wheel for sure.

I often catch myself in a panic.  “I haven’t run all of my training runs this week!!!!  Will I be able to finish the marathon????”  Then I collect myself and realize, “Yes.  I’ve done it before.  I’m training and doing the best I can.”  Plus, I have two guardian angels pulling me along!  This training is not about me.  This training is about my mom, Patty and my In-Memory Partner, Jonathan.  I can cope with the elements.

XO