Chilly, Windy and Cloudy; Perfect Half Rock N Roll Marathon Weather

(l-r)  My son, Adam, My mom sally, My sister Julie, Me, Julie's husband Rob, My Nieces Simone and Marissa, My friend Susy and her son Josh, my godson at the finish line. The kids call me Tio Jefe - Uncle Chief in Spanish

Over 15,000 runners, joggers and walkers set off from Dallas City Hall on the Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon yesterday. 13.1 miles later, on a cool, cloudy, damp morning, there was a Brett Michaels concert and lots of food and drink at the Fair Park finish line. All accounts had this to be a well organized and well run race.

I was pretty pleased with my 2 hour 16 minute and 15 second time, as 10 days ago I was sick with a flu bug and unable to get out of bed. My son Adam, sister Julie, her husband and twin girls, our mom and my godson and his mom were all on hand to cheer me on at the finish. This is the first event of the 12 planned in my Race to Erase Ovarian cancer that Julie could attend, because the first 2 came on the heels of her chemotherapy, and she wasn't up to it. Good that she could this time - her birthday was the day before, and we hope she has many more.

Many people were racing in honor and/or memory of their loved ones lost to breast cancer, so it put in perspective how lucky I am to be able to do this fundraiser to help spread awareness and promote healthy survivorship of ovarian cancer in Julie's honor, and that Julie just had a birthday.

Here's a link directly to the fundraising page http://nocc.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=464587 - help us raise awareness to catch ovarian cancer in it's early stages and promote healthy survivorship. Thanks to all for helping with the fundraising efforts - we're almost at $9000 so far - on our way to 50K by the end of the year.

Rock N Roll Dallas Half Marathon Is Next - Sunday 3/27

The next challenge is this weekend, the Dallas Rock N Roll Half Marathon. Sunday looks like it will be a beautiful day for a nice long run - a little over 2 hours. The course starts at City Hall downtown, and finishes at Fair Park. In between it goes west of downtown, up through Highland Park, over towards White Rock Lake and then through East Dallas to the fairgrounds.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy. We helped chaperone the ESD senior class trip to Cancun, at a really nice resort call Dreams. All inclusive, it had good food, nice rooms, a great spa and workout facility and a beautiful beach. The five days we were there were spent enjoying the Mayan Riviera and the beautiful weather. The kids and all the adults had a great time. I got to run on the beach, bike into the town a few miles away, and swim in the ocean in preparation for my upcoming endurance events.

Our whole household, however, passed around a pretty nasty stomach bug starting a couple of days before we got home. It kept me out of the office for 3 days, and away from my workouts for 6 days. But I'm back on track and feeling well and rested for Sunday's jog in the (Fair) park.

We've had a great result from the fundraiser so far - in the last 2 months we've raised almost $9000 and we're really just getting started. So come out and watch the race, enjoy the beautiful weather and help us raise awareness ans save lives in the process!

Latest From My Sister Julie's Chemotherapy...

Julie has now come towards the end of the every three week course of chemotherapy. According to her journal entry on Caringbridge.com, she is in remission. The next steps are to finish the last part of this last round next week and then go on monthly maintenance with a drug called Taxol. Taxol can be pretty tough to handle but she's handled all the other meds well so she's going to take it one round at a time - a 12 round heavyweight bout. Hopefully at the end she'll still be standing and she can take the next steps to a healthy survivorship.
All prayers, support and otherwise good wishes are still needed and appreciated, but the news so far is as good as we could have hoped for. We're all hopeful.

Read Julie's Caringbridge entries here: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/julieshrell