Team Dynamite Franny

Welcome to my Team in Training blog!  I am so excited to begin my marathon training, and I hope you'll stop by to check on my progress.  This blog will chart my workouts, fundraising efforts, running-induced delirium, new friends, inspiring moments, and continuing journey to help raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

This week has marked my first few days of training, and it's off to a good (and sore) start!  On Monday, I hit the gym for some lower body strength training.  My legs are still seriously questioning why on Earth I would abuse them so brutally.  Lunges and squats were a bit of a wakeup call for legs that have mostly been holed up in the law library and puttering around Berkeley!  Tuesday was an easy 3 miles and tonight (Wednesday) will be upper body strength training.

I am a little nervous about tackling 26.2 miles while in the midst of law school, but Saturday's TNT Kickoff got me hooked.  Team in Training gives you a reason to run and train that is so much more important than mileage splits, race pace, or Fartleks (more on all this once training picks up!).  Let me introduce you to that reason:

Meet Franny.  She is a bundle of curly-haired energy, a devotee of the color pink, and a survivor of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL).  Pretty amazing considering she is six years old!  After successful blood transfusions, chemotherapy, and bone marrow expulsions, Franny's ALL is in remission-- hopefully for good.  She even got to start kindergarten in September!

Franny is the inspiration for our team name:  Team Dynamite (TNT... get it!) Franny, and more broadly, the inspiration for all of us on the team.

Please visit my fundraising page http://pages.teamintraining.org/sf/Oakland11/kmerkr to donate and help LLS in its mission to find a cure for kids like Franny.

And now... off to the gym!