Born Ready

On April 15th, 2013, I’ll have the honor of running the Boston Marathon with the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC) team.

When I first applied to run for the DFMC, I was of course excited about the possible opportunity to run in perhaps the most sought-after foot race in the world-- an experience that I’m sure I’ll never forget.  I had a pretty compelling application, not unlike the one I submitted two years ago when I fundraised for Dana-Farber and ran the 2010 B.A.A. Half Marathon: my grandfather had passed away earlier in the year due to complications arising from prostate cancer, and I wanted to run in his memory.

“In his memory”... that’s just what you say in these sorts of things, right?  Sure, I’ve thought of my grandfather a lot over the past few years.  He was a huge part of my life growing up, and I’ve missed him since he’s been gone.  But it wasn’t until now that I really understood what that phrase meant.

Earlier this evening, I was talking to my wife, Kristen, about the idea of this blog, and wondering what I should name it.  After spending too much time laughing at suggestions like “milesandsmiles” and “igottheruns”, Kristen finally asked me, “well, why did you want to run this race anyway?”  It didn’t take very long for me to start drawing on memories of my grandfather, racing through the plethora of his famous quotes, and feeling mesmerized by vivid images of him still locked in my brain.  I soon forgot about the blog, my fundraising goals, and the race itself.

I suppose that my experience of training for the Boston Marathon is a reason to stop and remember my grandfather.  I have a lot of old pictures-- in photo albums in my basement.  David E. Cook (the one I care about, anyway) has no Facebook page.  And as time goes on, I’ve found it more difficult to remember specifics (so it goes, I guess).

All that being said, in the words of my grandfather, “I was born ready” to start my training and raise awareness of the amazing things being done by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to improve patient care and advance cancer research.  If you’d like to follow along, I’ll do my best to share stories about my grandfather and keep you up-to-date on my training.

If those aren’t reasons enough to pay attention, stay tuned for information about baked good packages that Kristen and I will be preparing and selling!  All proceeds to benefit the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

In the meantime, if you’d like to make a donation to my fundraising effort, please do so here!