Long Swim & Run and some bone marrow knowledge

summary: Swam 2400 yds (1hr) Ran 9 miles (1.5 hr)

The group workout was at Campolino High School again today. The swim workout involved a bunch of pace intervals and I felt really good.
Coach Joe introduced the run as less distance than the training plan called for, but very hilly. The Wildflower tri course is very hilly so they want us to start training on hills. The folks doing the Olympic distance tri were supposed to do about 5-6 miles today. When I got to the turn-around point, I was feeling really good and decided to do what the half iron man folks were running. So overall I did 9 miles. It helped that I ran the last 6 miles with a gal named Alexa. We helped to push each other in pace and in distance. The last 1-2 miles was a hill loop that took us past the high school where we were parked and it would have been so easy to skip, which both of us probably would have done if we were running alone.

For the first couple of miles of the run, I ran with Melanie, who is one of our team honorees. I'm not sure I've blogged about our honorees yet, so I'll take some time to now.

We have several "honorees" on my team and it is an emotional roller coaster. Some are healthy and are training with us. Some are not so lucky. One 47 yr old woman named Lori passed away in our first week of training. And we recently learned that Josh, a 12-yr old boy with leukemia had a relapse and will be undergoing more chemo treatments and possibly a bone marrow transplant soon. It's just not something a 12 year old should have to deal with.

Melanie is a healthy chemistry grad student and completed a half-ironman triathlon last fall. This October will be her 5 yr anniversary of being cancer free. But it will be the 2nd time she hit this milestone. She has acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) and was first diagnosed at age 6. Chemotherapy worked well for her and she was cancer free for 9 years. Then when she was in college, the cancer returned. That time around she didn't respond to chemo as well and had to have an autologous bone marrow transplant - which is where they extract your own bone marrow, treat it with chemo and other drugs to wipe out the cancer, and then inject it back into you. It worked well for Melanie. It was really interesting to talk with Melanie and hear about her experiences. I know a lot more about bone marrow transplants than a I did before (which wasn't much). For instance, she had to redo all her immunization shots because the transplant basically wiped her immune system clean. And because she did an autologous transplant, she doesn't have to take anti-rejection medications.

We have several other team honorees and as I learn more about them, I'll mention them in my blog.