Marathon Update #9

Photo: My beautiful Sasha who dressed herself. Reminding me that I have to figure out what my race day attire will be, the day is almost here.




To make a donation please visit my official fundraising page:
http://pages.teamintraining.org/los/LA10/bsosax


It's that time again… MARATHON UPDATE TIME!!!!! Well for this update I've decided to go with the theme of addressing all the issues from last update. For those of you reading this on my blog and not facebook the updates show in reverse order, so you'd have to scroll down to see the early ones. Well without any further delay lets move on (oh, a quick editors note: I have included a few grammatical and spelling errors for one of my good friends and favourite readers. Just a little treat, like a treasure hunt):

20 miles -

Well, I didn't run the 20 last Saturday. I appreciate all the input from everyone on what to do here, however my body isn't feeling great right now and I really don't want to risk my legs for marathon day. I did about 12.5 instead. Now not doing the 20 is a bit scary, because apparently most first timers hit "the wall" somewhere between mile 18 and 22. So seeing as my longest run to date has been 18, I won't have the experience in my back pocket. On the brighter side, my knees don't hurt terribly when I walk. Yeah!!!!!! So as for this 12.5 mile run, wow!!! This run kicked my butt. This was by far the hardest run to date. The bad thing about that is, my two hardet runs have both come in Santa Monica on the tail end of my marathon course. I'm planning on going and running the last 3-4 miles of the course the week before the race (thanks Lo-pan). since I'm being a bit more open in this blog than my normal comfort level, I'll have to admit this run has really scared me. My first difficult run was hard for various reasons; knee ligament issues, muscle fatigue, no breakfast, no sleep the night before and so on. However, these were all normal things. I could handle and fix them all. This week wasn't that at all. This week's run was full of weird not fun at all pain, hard breathing, a period where some organ inside of me hurt (don't know what that was), an almost migraine, and a lack of me being able to mentally put it all behind me easily and just run. I had a tough time negotiating between the acceptable and non-acceptable pains. And it was less than 1/2 of my marathon. Damn!!!!! Ok, so all that said I am finishing the marathon. If I collapse halfway down the course my running mentor has already agreed to carry me across the line (although seeing as I outweigh her by about 100 lbs I'm not to sure how that'll work out). Seriously though there is no way I'm not finishing. I've come way to far and I don't care what hurts, or how much. I'm finishing.

Fundraising (beware of "AMAZING") -

Ok once again this has been AMAZING. As of right now I'm at 90% of my goal and the support has been awesome. And amazing!!!! So for those of you who are planning a last minute donation, my final funds are due tomorrow even though I can still raise money for the next 6 weeks or so. That just means they'll charge my credit card for the difference tomorrow and reimburse me if I meet the goal later. Needless to say I'd like to not have that happen so feel free to come and support. Also, from the show of support that's grown exponentially these last couple weeks I am thinking I'll probably surpass my goal by marathon day, can you say AMAZING. So if you're going to my page to donate and you see that I've already hit my goal, don't worry you didn't miss the bus you can still donate. The money goes to a great cause. And since I'm going to have to find a way to give 120% to finish that race I may as well raise 120% of my fundraising goal. Right??? Catchy isn't it? So please come by my fundraising page (link above) and support. Even if it's just a buck it really means a lot to see that long list of names of people who care. So going back to the theme of how amazing this has been, thank you everyone for your support. For those of you who know me, you know that accepting help and support is not my best talent. Actually it'd be fair to say I suck at it. However, I've had to try to get past that because this isn't for me. This is for the brave men and women I've had the honor to fight along with. And they deserve every ounce of support they can get. So I've done a bit more of accepting help and support and you all have been amazing!!!! Amazing!!!! I can't begin to express how much this support has touched me. So great. Really, thank you all so much. You all are AMAZING!!!!!

Worlds Colliding -

Sorry you don't understand Robin. For those of you who may have missed it, I've asked George Castanza to explain how worlds colliding works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxuYdzs4SS8

So now that you understand what kind of cataclysmic catastrophes are possible with the collisions of worlds, beware worlds will be colliding on March 21st. Once again you're all invited to come. After consulting with one of my teammates I may even ask one or two of you to post along the way with some grapes, or a mini frappuccino, any volunteers :-) ???? So as of right now I have about 6 worlds colliding, and to be honest I don't even know who else may be coming. However this should be interesting. I am super excited that my favorite people in the world (nieces & nephews) will be there. So for any of you who've been listening to me go on and on about them for years now,, and have been dying to meet them, this is your chance. So if you think you want to come let me know, or just show up. They have a system so that people can find runners at the finish by last name. or you can see me run by along the race route and hold up a homemade sign that says something like, "Brandon is the greatest" or "Brandon is amazing" or "Brandon 4 President" or a million other things, you get the idea. So my worlds will collide but hopefully that doesn't mean that Brandon will cease to exist as you know him!

Them Bones -

Ok, so I kind of touched on this above, but damn my bones hurt. Actually the pain is getting kind of funky. My doc said I wouldn't be able to do it not that I couldn't and now I know what he meant. That being said I've kept him apprised quite regularly about any and all pains and I will monitor my body closely before, during and after the race. But as I said before, I'm finishing the race. If I have to lay on my side and roll 26.2 miles I will. I'm finishing the race. So as for addressing them bones in my updates, I'm just gonnna leave it here, they hurt, but neither they nor what's inside them will stop me. And that's all I have to say about that.

So now that the race is ever so close, I'd like to say again thank you every one for your support. Financially, emotionally and in every way. This has truly been a journey and I'm excited to carry it through to the end. Please leave comments, they're great!!!!

B