Hi Everyone.  I just wanted to say hi, thanks, and congrats to everyone involved with Team In Training (TNT).  I learned about TNT this year through the Master the Shift program with Nissan.  It's been a great year of traveling around to different races, getting to meet a lot of you, sharing some yoga tips, and hearing your stories.  It's been inspiring to soak in the TNT vibe.  The work you do and have done is mind boggling.  You've reached $1 billon dollars to fight blood cancers and improve quality of life.  That's truly amazing.  Your efforts have changed so many people's lives, including mine.

Yoga is a practice that works from the inside out.  You start where you are and you're somewhere different every day.  Yoga cultivate s  a balance of strength and balance in our bodies and our minds.  It's all connected to the breath.  When we focus on the breath, instead of the circus wheel of thoughts, we are brought into the present moment.  And when we are balanced in the present moment, we are able to extend ourselves into the lives of others and serve effectively.  That's what yoga's all about.  Conscious living.  Living a useful life for ourselves, and others.  We're all in this together.  When you give you receive and TNT participants can feel the gratitude, the love, the energy and support of everyone you've touched.  Please continue your efforts in fighting blood cancers, building strength in your bodies, and minds, and supporting each other.

If you ever need a stress reducer, take a minute for yourself, close your eyes and focus on your breath.  5 minutes makes a big difference.  Meditation doesn't have to be a big deal you take 60 minutes out of your day.  When we recharge we are more equip to serve.  For more tips  and videos from me, visit MastertheShift.com.

Thank you for letting me into your world.  I appreciate you.

Tara Stiles

• Find out more about Tara on the MasterTheShift.com
  

In 2007, while vacationing with his family in Italy, Jake Silberg began feeling ill. After two weeks in a Rome hospital, he was diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma, a rare and aggressive blood cancer. He was flown back to the US, where great medical care and support from his family, friends and community all were critical to his recovery. So was peer-to-peer support, which Jake says played an important role in getting him through the challenges presented by the intense treatment that rid his body of his cancer two years ago. "I gained a lot of strength from my peer mentor, Weldon, a young adult cancer survivor my doctor connected me with. It was so incredible to see him fresh from running the NYC marathon, getting ready to go to college to become an oncologist...He showed me how my life could be and helped me understand that I could get through this and beat cancer."

Fast forward to September 2009. Jake is a featured speaker at The Nation's Tri Inspiration Dinner, attended by more than 1,500 triathletes, many of them Team In Training participants. Jake reminded the triathletes that he got through the toughest days of chemotherapy by saying to himself that “you can do this, just hold steady.” He told the triathletes to remember that refrain when they faced the challenges of the race course. The next day, he was on the course cheering on the participants and running the last mile with a triathlete friend and his parents. He also gives back to others as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s First Connection peer counseling program.

Jake recently took our young adult cancer survey, produced in conjunction with the I'm Too Young for This! Foundation (see:http://survey.i2y.com), to raise awareness about the unique challenges young adult cancer patients face. If you're a young adult cancer patient or young adult cancer survivor, we want to hear from you. As an added incentive, for the first 400 survey takers - 1 in 8 will win a $50 iTunes gift card. Please note that to be eligible you must be 15-39 and a cancer survivor.

View the video excerpt of Jake's Speech at The Nation's Tri Inspiration Dinner.

• Find out more about First Connection, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's peer-to-peer telephone support program linking patients and their families with a trained volunteer who has experienced a similar situation. (see: http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/all_page?item_id=4582)
• Help young adults like Jake by participating in Team In Training (www.teamintraining.org), the worlds first, best and largest endurance sports training program. Our program has helped train more than 420,000 people for endurance sports events (marathons, triathlons, century rides, and hike adventures) over the past 21 years and raised more than $1 billion for life-saving cancer research in the process.

We're proud of our participants and impressed by our top fundraisers, like Tam Driscoll, who won top fundraiser honors at The Nike Women's Marathon last month.

Pictured here is Tam, along with her Daugher, Devan. Tam is wearing her top fundraiser Tiffany necklace.

Here's a message that Tam shared with her friends and supporters following the event:

I just returned from San Francisco for the Nike Women's Marathon and Half Marathon that took place this past weekend and secured the top fundraising spot in the nation for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training (TNT). It was an amazing yet bittersweet weekend. I was the guest speaker for the VIP fundraiser party on Friday night as well as speaker for the Breakfast at Tiffany's on Saturday. I got to meet Olympian's Kara Goucher and run with Joan Benoit Samuelson the following morning. My family was with me again at the Inspiration Dinner where we remembered those who lost the fight to cancer like Nancy and honor those fighting. I received a surprise award from Nissan at the Moscone Center with over 7,000 present. Sunday morning race was incredible where I joined a sea of over 20,000 runners and walkers from all over. While I didn't beat the Kenyan, Ethiopian or the woman from California that won the foot race, I did win over 5,000 other winners fundraising from 66 TNT Chapters to be the #1 Fundraiser in the entire nation by raising a record $57,775 for the Society! I owe it to AIDA: Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action and to all of you for generously supporting my effort in memory of my sister Nancy. My family was front and center: three of my sisters, Deb, Pam and Tray flew in from the east coast and joined me along with husband Geoff and daughter Devan. They were with me on the race course which was wonderful in so many ways. The six months of training and fundraising culminated in the race of my life for me and my family. It was worth every step in this amazing journey as I know a cure for cancer is within our reach.

I'm thankful for each and every one of you for your support and generosity to fund and find a cure for blood cancer and to provide quality of life to patients and their families. Here's to ending the pain & heartache and for our future!

With heartfelt thanks,  

Tam
www.tamdriscoll.com

Thank you, Tam, for your passionate commitment to our cause!  Because of your efforts, blood cancer patients are living better, longer lives.

• See Tam's Team In Training Fundraising page

• Portland's Outlook featured this story on Tam, Tam Driscoll sets fundraising record for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

• Visit www.teamintraining.org for more about the Nike Women's Marathon
  

Tommy Owens comments on "Are Humans Meant to Run Long Distances"

Owens weighs in on the the importance of marathon training with his response to Tara Parker-Pope's post, with

"As a running coach for 20 years, I concur that training gradually over a long period of time is the surest and safest way to get to the start and finish line injury free, while feeling excited and fresh. At Team in Training (www.teamintraining.org) we [understand] the importance of training for at least four to five months, and we usually recommend a combination of run/ walk to help our people build their strength, stamina, and endurance, and mitigate the risk of injury. Proper pacing is a significant key to healthy enjoyable training. Our clinics on proper gear,nutrition and hydration, and running form also helps a great deal. Having a training program with easy days, recovery days, along with a gradual increase in mileage, certainly adds to the health, safety, and enjoyment for all our people."

For the full post, see: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/are-humans-meant-to-run-long-distances/?apage=6#comments 

Pictured here is Marcella Marcheschi (L) with her sister, Gabriella (R). Both sisters and their mother participated in the Nike Women's Marathon Sunday.

“I don’t think words can explain what it feels like to be told you have cancer,” says Marcella Marcheschi, 28, of San Francisco, of learning of her diagnosis of Hodgkin lymphoma in January of 2008. “All of a sudden I wasn’t a young healthy 20-something any more. I had something in my body killing me.”

On Sunday she wore one word on her shirt: “Survivor,” eliciting cheers from onlookers as she crossed the finish line at the Nike Women’s Marathon and Half Marathon. Marcheschi was among 4,000 members of Team In Training (www.teamintraining.org) who raised more than $14 million to support blood cancer research and patient services at this year’s marathon.

Read more about her story here, in today's San Francisco Chronicle article.