The Loathing of This Not-So-Long Distance Runner

I'd like to write a real post for you, but I have to run.

Not figuratively. For reals.

One foot in front of the other, knees up, arms pumping. Ooof. I'm breathing heavy thinking about it. Medic!

I'm still stumbling through my training program to help me stumble through a 5K in Baltimore to raise money on behalf of Li’l Diva and Cure JM Foundation next month. With only a few weeks to go, I can say without qualification that when I keel over that finish line I will leave one sweaty but fit corpse.

You may recall that I've had flirtations with jogging before, usually after unsuccessful bouts of buttoning my pants. Nearly of all of these fitness fits ended with not-so-subtle reminders from my body that running is best left to refrigerators.

However, our real family runner, My Love, had knee surgery a few weeks ago following advice from her doctor that the bottom half of her right leg might randomly fall off. This would require us to change her name to Peg.

As a result, I'm taking her place. I'm also working on an apology letter to the National Asphalt Makers and Layers Association.

I've been adhering to a running schedule that I found online (because everything on the Internet is helpful and true) that gradually lengthens my distance and running time in hope of turning this couch potato (honestly, I'm more of a "desk doughnut") into a 5K competitor. Three times a week, I’ve been slogging around the track at school near our house and, as of today, I can confidently report that [checks pulse] I'm still alive.

Running has definitely increased my stamina. I now only require CPR every other run. It hasn't helped with my memory or math skills, though. I've lost count of my laps several times. Sadly, each time my goal was running three.

Yet somehow this past weekend, I managed 2.25 miles (3.62 kilometers for the metrically inclined or 7920 cubits for those building flood arks). It didn’t feel good but I’d be seriously concerned if it did.

The one thing all my huffing and puffing has produced, aside from yellow stains under the armpits of several T-shirts, is a smile on My Love’s lips. Every time I roll my eyes and groan "I'm going for a run," her entire face lights up the way mine does when party hosts offer me beer. Of course, these days My Love is on a lot of Vicodin.

Whoa. Look at the time. Let me throw some sneakers on my feet, Band-Aids on my nipples and Vaseline between my thighs. I have promises to keep and miles to go before I write.

And obviously, I have some real issues with chafing.

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Our family is halfway to our fundraising goal of $20,000. Please throw a few tax-deductible dollars our way to help Li’l Diva and other children with juvenile myositis kick this disease’s butt.

Donate to the Uncools’ FirstGiving page at http://tinyurl.com/JM-donate-online.

$50K Closer to Curing Juvenile Myositis

It’s official.

You have helped Cure JM Foundation win $50,000 to research the cause, treatment and cure for juvenile myositis, the rare autoimmune disease that Li’l Diva and our family has dealt with for the past 10 years.

Your votes, tweets and shared Facebook links helped us receive almost 9,000 votes in the latest Chase Community Giving contest. That put us in 20th place out of more 4,000 (yes – 4,000!) organizations vying for the money.

Not bad for a handful of concerned parents and family members volunteering their time to help the few thousand children in the United States affected by this mysterious disease.

Your kindness to my family and our larger Cure JM family in the past four years has helped us win $300,000 in grants, raise about $50,000 in donations and spread awareness throughout the digital world and beyond.

You wear it well, friends.

Thank you, again and again. Not just from me, but from the children your caring will be helping soon. Here are a few of them:

 

If you’d like to do more, please donate to Cure JM by supporting my “run” (and yes, the quotes are warranted) in Baltimore next month on behalf of Li’l Diva. The goal widget is now posted on the blog home page if you want to check out our progress in reaching our goal.

A Vote for Normal

My Love is perplexed which is annoying because that’s my household specialty.

“How does Cure JM only have 2,800 votes in the Chase Community Giving contest? It only takes a minute and a few clicks on Facebook. I’m not expecting us to win $250,000 again but we should be able to get to number 11 for the $100,000,” she said to me last night after an hour of conference call brainstorming with other parents of kids with juvenile myositis.

She looked at me.

“Hey, I’m trying,” I said. “I’ve Facebooked. I’ve tweeted. I’ve emailed people. Now I’m hitting people up via instant message. I never IM people. My online friends are thinking I’ve been replaced by a pod person who will next be trying to convince them to try some tasty soylent green.”

:: crickets ::

“Soylent green,” I said. “It’s people.”

:: crickets leaping to their deaths::

Then I threw my daughter under the bus.

“Hey, what about the girl? What’s Li’l Diva doing? This is all to benefit kids like her. She has a Facebook account. I hear the youngun’s love the Facebook and the mouse clicking and the liking and the poking!”

Li’l Diva was summoned away from another cringe worthy episode of Dance Moms to face the parental music.

She spoke like the middle-schooler she is.

She said, “I don’t want other kids to know I have a disease.”

Correction. She spoke like the average, normal middle-schooler she is underneath the makeup she started wearing this year to hide the telltale mark of juvenile myositis – the bright butterfly rash across her face.

My Love and I looked at one another.

“You don’t have to say you have the disease,” My Love said. “Say you are just trying to help kids who do have it.”

All I could do was nod.

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Cure JM Foundation, the tiny nonprofit that searches for a cure for our daughter's autoimmune disease, is SERIOUSLY in the running for $100,000 from Chase Community Giving and still has a chance for the big $250,000 grant.

This is a quick one-time vote (OK - two times if you vote then share the link and someone clicks it; three times if you are a Chase bank/credit card holder) that takes only a couple of mouse clicks. Please vote for us and our charity partner, Rett Syndrome Research, before Sept. 19 and spread the word.

Here’s some details: http://www.curejm.org/chase/index.php

Here's the voting link: http://tinyurl.com/click2curejm-rett

Here’s a 2-minute video that will require a tissue or two:

Cure JM Before I Keel Over Trying

You know those people who obnoxiously tweet, Facebook and blog widget their running times and distances?

I hate them.

I exaggerate.

I only hate every fiber of their obnoxious “put down the Doritos and look at me acting all superior and health-conscious” beings.

Know who hates them more than me?

My Love.

But only because she can’t be one of them.

After running two marathons and three half-marathons over the years to raise money to help find a cure for Li’l Diva’s juvenile myositis, My Love has been officially scratched from the Baltimore Running Festival on Oct. 13, 2012. She goes under the knife next week to repair a torn meniscus in one of her knees.

In her place, will be …