Hi :

 

I hope this finds you doing well.  Spring is here in Anchorage, Alaska and all is well.

 

Have you heard I have gone off the deep end again?  On June 4, 2006 I will attempt to run 26.2 miles!

 

I am participating in The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training Program.   I am training for San Diego's Rock n Roll Marathon.  All of us on TNT are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives.  (Every five minutes, someone in the United States learns that he or she has leukemia, Hodgkin or non-Hodgkin lymphoma or myeloma. Every nine minutes, someone dies of a blood cancer). I am training to run 26.2 miles in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers. These people are the real heroes on our team, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure!

 

My fundraising goal is $4,300.  Is it possible for you to donate $2 for each mile?  Please make a donation to support my participation in TNT and help advance the Society's mission.  You can donate on-line at

www.active.com/donate/tntwaak/TracyRWilliams

or, you can mail a check to me at 7141 Tall Spruce Drive, Anchorage, AK 99502.   The deadline for funds is May 1st, 2006.    Any donation is greatly appreciated!

 

Currently, our training is ½ way point in the training.  15 miles is the long run goal for the week!   Look out San Diego-here I come!!  Let’s find a cure! 

 

Thank you!!! 

                                                                                                                                                                                               

Tracy Roesch Williams

www.active.com/donate/tntwaak/TracyRWilliams

 

 

 

p.s.- attached is a letter written to the team from one of our Honored Teammates, Connie Markis.  It includes an update on her own personal journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My name is Connie Markis.  I am someone who recently connected with the Team In Training crew here as a result of my sister-in-law, Judy Barnes & her Mentor, Terri Mayeur to see if I would be interested in becoming an Honored Teammate.  I qualify as a result of being diagnosed with Lymphoma in April of ’99.  I didn’t really know what was involved, but said sure and then little by little started learning more about TNT.  I actually had contact once back in 2000 indirectly with TNT as one of my friends did a marathon in Hawaii in honor of a 7 year old Leukemia patient.  I was impressed then with her training schedule and secretly have always wanted to do a marathon myself since I was a jogger in earlier years. I had actually started training to do a marathon nearly 15 years ago until the main ligament in my left knee tore and needed repairing in the midst of it.  Now my aspirations are a bit less vigorous. 

I’m now embarking on a different journey, but in some respects it could probably be compared to a marathon of sorts.  In three weeks, I start the process of having a stem cell harvest and then after a brief rest will receive high dose radiation and chemotherapy to destroy my immune system and receive back my own stem cells (which will be treated with chemotherapy) in hopes of rescuing my immune system and beating down the lymphoma as much as possible.  I will be going to Portland, Oregon for this and I’m fortunate to have some very dear friends who live there that we can stay with when I’m not in the hospital.  I’m a little sad to be missing the beginning of our Alaska summer, but hope to be back sometime in July to get in on some of it at least. 

So now, here’s the amazing part…YOU – ALL OF YOU!  If you could see through my eyes and feel with my heart, you would know how much what you are doing really means.  I’m lucky that my health is good enough now to be able to go with Judy on some of her training walks.  I see the dedication and sense an understanding that you are contributing something beyond yourself, so you push on, even when there is still ice on the road and seemingly in the air too.  When I was younger, my mother died of a blood cancer and in that time there wasn’t as much hope with the limited technology of the day.  But now, through efforts such as Team In Training, I feel great hope not only for myself, but for my children and other generations to come.  The reality though, is that it takes money and as much research as we can throw at it along with a great deal of support and encouragement.  This is the huge piece that all of you bring and it is no little thing.  You just need to know that day after day as you continue to train, you are heros to people like me.  I definitely will be cheering you on even if from far away.  Thank you so much!