Only two days away until the Boston
Marathon is finally here. I just wanted to give everyone an update
on my fundraising, my training, the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge
Partner Program, and give some additional information on how you can
follow me on race day.
Fundraising
It has been seven months since I began
this journey and decided to take on the task of training for the
Boston Marathon and simultaneously fundraising for Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute. I knew going into this which would be the harder of the
two. Training for a race, even a marathon, is something that I can
control, for the most part, as long I devote the time and effort and
stick to a training plan. Fundraising on the other hand is
completely uncharted territory for me. Fundraising requires me to
ask for other people to donate money to a cause. It's not something
that I am really comfortable doing, even after doing it for these
past few months. But I can honestly say that there is not a single
organization that I would rather raise money for than Dana-Farber.
As of the typing of this blog,
through the extremely generous contributions of all of you, we have
raised $3,215.80 for cancer research. I can not express enough how
appreciative and grateful I am to each and every one of your for your
contributions to Dana-Farber. 100% of your contributions will go to
supporting the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer
Research at Dana-Farber.
For those of you who would like to make
a donation to support this cause, you can still make a donation in two
ways. To make a donation online via credit card, just visit
http://www.rundfmc.org/2013/andrews
or my easy to remember domain name http://www.2013bostonmarathon.com.
Both addresses will go to the same place. If you prefer to donate
via check, you can send a donation payable to "Dana-Farber
Marathon Challenge" to Andrew Stack, 122 Lawrence Corner Rd.,
Pelham, NH 03076. All contributions are tax-deductible. Please also
check to see if your company has a matching gifts program.
Training
Training for the Boston Marathon was
definitely the easy part for me. Since I began my training back in
September, I've logged 1,158 miles. There have been a couple bumps
in the road as far as injuries go. I've had some hamstring and lower
leg injuries during my training which has limited my training at
times. I've learned to appreciate the power of Ibuprofen. "Vitamin
I" has gotten me through what would have been some rather
painful times. Dealing with injuries is a very common part of
marathon training and you just learn to manage those injuries to put
you in the best possible shape on Marathon Monday. The Dana-Farber
Marathon Challenge team is fortunate to have 1976 Boston Marathon
Champion Jack Fultz as our training advisor. Having the guidance of
someone who not only knows how to train for a marathon, but has
experience training novice runners like myself, who have never had
any formal running or track training in my life, has been extremely
beneficial. Our training program included group runs often on
portions of the actual marathon course. Heartbreak Hill will be a
little less intimidating when you've run up and down is several times
as part of your training. To be honest, I'm actually looking forward to Heartbreak Hill since it's the part of the course that I am most familiar with. Indoor Track Speed Workouts at Tufts
University was also part of our training program.
Something else I did as part of my
training was I incorporated a lot of road races into my training
schedule. In hindsight, this is one thing I wouldn't recommend
doing. But I did manage to set a bunch of personal records in the
process and made it through these races relatively unscathed.
Dana-Farber Patient Partner
Program
One thing I knew I wanted to
participate in was the Dana-Farber Patient Partner Program. This
program pairs up Dana-Farber runners with existing or past pediatric
patients of the Jimmy Fund Clinic. My wife Angela participated in
this program during the 1996 Boston Marathon when she was going
through her cancer treatments at Dana-Farber. It meant a lot to both
myself and Angela to be able to bring things full circle and run in
honor of someone else. Last month I got to meet my Dana-Farber
Patient Partner, Patrick Skiba of Newburyport, MA. Patrick is a
six-year old cancer survivor, Lego fanatic, and past patient of the Jimmy
Fund Clinic at Dana-Farber. I'm looking forward to seeing Patrick at
the Pasta Party tomorrow and again at Mile 25 at
the Dana-Farber cheering section on race day!
Marathon Monday
For those of you who plan on cheering
me on in Boston on race day, please LET ME KNOW WHERE YOU WILL BE
WATCHING FROM. Please try to be as specific as possible too.
Such as "in front of the Pizzeria Uno in Kenmore Square on the
right side of the course" or "on the left side of the
course just past the mile 8 sign". From past runners'
experience, it is significantly easier for the runners to find you
than it is for you to find a runner. Otherwise, there's a good
chance that I will run right past you.
For those of you who won't be making it
into Boston but still wish to follow my progress, you can sign up for
AT&T Athlete Alerts by texting the word RUNNER to 345678.
You will then need to text them my bib number which is 23031.
You will receive a confirmation message with my name in it if you
successfully signed up. You will receive text message alerts of my
progress at four points along the marathon course.
Text Alerts are sent at the
following locations:
10K (6.2 Miles) - Past the Framingham
Train Depot
Half Marathon (13.1 Miles) - After
running past the "Scream Tunnel" at Wellesley College
30K (18.6 Miles) - In the Newton Hills
approaching Heartbreak Hill
Finish Line (26.2 Miles) - Copley
Square
You can also follow me on the Boston
Athletic Association's website which is http://www.baa.org.
You will have to enter my name or my bib number (23031). The
website will provide my times at every 5K interval. So if you have
access to a computer or smartphone during the race, you can find out
a little more information on my progress.
There is also a new smartphone app that the Boston Athletic Association has just unveiled that you can download by texting APP to 345678. I've tried it out on my iPod and it looks pretty good. It'll let you track up to ten different runners.
Please note that I am starting in Wave
3 of the race which starts at 10:40AM which is 40 minutes after the
elite runners start. So if you are wondering why I haven't crossed
the 5K mark an hour into the race, that's probably the reason why.
That also means that the Kenyans are halfway through Natick before I
even cross the starting line.
Thank You!
The Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge has
easily been one of the most incredible and rewarding experiences of
my life and I couldn't have done this without all of you. Thank you
for allowing me to bombard your with all the emails, Facebook posts,
and blog entries over these past few months. Thanks again to all of
you for your generous support!
Andrew
