Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Mom and Dad  : )

Greg, Cherie, and Jonathan 

DFMC 2011 - Here I come!

Merry Christmas!!  : )  It has been a whirlwind week, and part of me still can't believe that it's Christmas morning.  This past weekend I took the first part of my state certification testing for my EMT-B license, which was the practical exam.  For the exam, there are several 'stations' each of which presents a different scenario (for example, an unresponsive/not breathing patient in need of CPR/AED, a broken wrist that needs splinting, etc.).  The first station that I got assigned to was a victim with a broken femur (that huge bone in your thigh).  As I stood before the two state examiners mentally rehearsing all the little known facts that I knew about broken femurs, I gave them the nod and began verbalizing the steps I needed to take.  But after the first step I had one small problem - my mind suddenly went completely blank and I totally forgot what Step 2 was.  My mind was racing and I decided that I couldn't just stand there staring blankly so I knelt by our 'patient' and began to examine the arm for a radial pulse, sensation, and motor function.  The arm.  I was examining the arm of a patient with a broken femur.  Why I thought that was a good thing to do, I'm not sure!  But as soon as I finished looking at the arm my brain cleared and I remembered all the remaining steps with ease.  My partner told me that the look on my face when I realized what I was doing was priceless.  After that small bout with nerves, I managed to go through the rest of the stations without any hiccups and - although they don't explicitly tell you - I think I passed!  An early Christmas present to be sure.

The rest of the week flew by, beginning with my trip to NYC to see The Tree in Rockefeller Square and many other Christmas sights.  Next came the Hendrickson Christmas celebration - always a highlight.  We draw names at Thanksgiving so each person buys for one other person, and this year baby Connor had me.  He (slash Kevin and Emma, his parents) did an awesome job and gave me some new winter running clothes - I've already put them to good use!  Then yesterday on Christmas Eve my family was all together for the day  : )  including my little nephew Nathan.  My parents went along with the running theme and I am now the owner of a Garmin GPS running watch - pretty sweet!!  I'm excited to put it to use...after I figure out how to use it of course.

All in all it's been a great week, and a reminder of how lucky I am to be surrounded by such great family and friends.  A popular status on FB lately has been, The average person has 1000 wishes, but a cancer patient only has one: to get well.  This Christmas I hope you'll join me in helping to bring that wish to reality for many patients by donating to the DFMC team.  Click Here to visit my fundraising page and donate!

Thank you, and have a very Merry Christmas!!

One week down, lots to go

After my first week of official marathon training, I'm still alive and kicking!  : )  Ok so it wasn't all too strenuous of a week.  I had a few runs, being 3 and 4 miles long they only scratched the surface of what's to come.  But nonetheless, I kept all my average mile splits under 10:00 without having to push myself too hard.  Hey...for me, that's a pretty good start!  I picked up a friend to run with...one of my Blades teammates will be joining me for the 26.2 miles come April 18th.  She'll be a 'bandit' and I'm very excited to have her along for the training journey / marathon experience!  We sat down together to go over the marathon training plan provided by Dana Farber / Jack Fultz, our training advisor, and settled on moving the weekly calendar ahead by one day so our 'long' runs each week will fall on Friday rather than Saturday.  Since our hockey games are played on Saturday and Sunday, we decided that running 15 miles before a hockey game in February might not be our best bet!  Needless to say I've been excited to get back into a daily routine.  Also, my fundraising letters have been finished, printed, and are in the process of being stamped/signed/addressed/sent out the door!  Just in time for Christmas  : )  I hope you'll consider making a donation in support of the DFMC team - there's no better gift than changing the life of someone else in need.

And so it begins...cold weather running

I came to two conclusions when I headed out for a 6 mile run on Wednesday evening.  The first conclusion was that it has indeed begun - those months of the year when as soon as I step outside to begin my jog my face starts to tingle at the cold.  On Wednesday night in Somerville, according to weather.com it was 29 degrees, but felt like 17.  Coldddd!  I have to say that once I start going I warm up for the most part - minus my face which is the only thing exposed to the cold air.  It's an interesting paradox - but needless to say, if you see someone dressed entirely in black with reflectors on and a ghost white face running around the Somerville/Medford area at night - it's probably me!  My second conclusion was that it is not easy to write a blog about running.  Since I have plenty of time to think during my runs, I decided that I'd get ahead of the game and brainstorm what I was going to blog about.  But my next thought was...ok, what do I write?  I ran by a white house...then a blue one...and THEN, I ran over a bridge.  It's not all that thrilling, except for when I happen to see odd occurrences - like when a car tried to pull a u-turn on Broadway but was going entirely too fast and drove straight into the curb on the other side of the street.  (True story)  Or, last year when I was running during the day in Boxford by my parents house...and if you know Boxford, it's a super small town with lots of woods and animals...and while I was jogging along I saw a rooster hanging out by the side of the road.  Not an uncommon sight for me, so I ignored it and jogged by - only to glance back and find it bobbing it's head and running after me.  So I suppose there are a few such entertaining stories that I typically find hilarious - and those are what would make a 'running' blog interesting.

Anyway, Monday begins my official training schedule!  More updates on that to come..