Ankle Stories

The following is a slight variation of the song by the Decemberists called Red Right Ankle (if you follow the link, click on the Preview button to hear the tune).

This is the story of my poor left ankle
And how it came to meet my leg
And how it twisted as my feet got tangled
On the stairs as I fell.

And how it screamed in misery
“Oh what have you done to me!
For whatever differences our lives have been
We together make a limb.”
This is the story of my poor left ankle.



That was 5 weeks ago, and things are definitely improving. For example, I have started running for 5 minutes a day last week. Of course, it will take me a bit longer than 5 minutes (more like 4+ hours) to run the Boston Marathon. With just over 2 months left before the race I am determined to do it, and my plan is fully supported by my team's coach, my physical therapist, and of course by my dear husband. So please--no worrying!

I Am Running Running Running

Tomorrow morning I am running Boston Half Marathon, and of course I am excited. I have bored Nick to death with questions about what to eat and what to wear. Not that Nick knows any better than I do, but it is a huge comfort to have him tell me what he thinks.

The level of my excitement seems even greater than it ought to be before a race, if that is at all humanly possible. I attribute this phenomenon to the fact that yesterday I have confirmed my place on the 2010 Dana Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC) team. In other words, I will be running the 2010 Boston Marathon!

Of course, all DFMC team members (and there are over 500 of us) have two major challenges before them. Besides training and running the marathon (one challenge), we also aim to raise $4.4 million for the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research. Personally my goal is to raise $8000 for cancer research, and that is the second and most important challenge. Please help me achieve my fundraising goal by making a donation!

To keep you up-to-date with my marathon training and my fundraising, I am brining back my Run Helen Run blog into action--the same blog I used when I was on the 2008 DFMC team. I hope you visit it regularly so that you can participate in raffles, games and other activities I plan on organizing.

For now, I am off to bed, so that I can be well rested for the race tomorrow. If you are in the Boston area, please come out to watch the race and cheer me on.

Watching Olympics All Night Long

Do you wonder why this blog has been quiet? Too much TV watching, and I blame the Olympics. Every night, there is at least one or two sports that I just have to watch. Here are the results of my Olympic TV watching marathon.

First the bad:

• I have been exercising patience in order to ignore NBC’s incredible bias in their commentary of almost every event in the Olympics. However, I am losing my patience and will start foaming at the mouth any minute now.


• And why do NBC reporters want to tell the TV audience the results of what NBC is about to show? For example, I was watching the women’s team gymnastics. “And this is where it all went wrong for the Chinese team,” said the commentator, while the Chinese gymnast took a deep breath preparing to do a vault. Sure enough, she landed on her butt. Later I caught a glimpse of the qualifying rounds for 110 meter men’s hurdles. “You are about to see a false start,” pronounced the commentator about 3 seconds before the gun fired. Why do we, the TV audience, have to be told what we are about to see?

And the good:

• While everyone seems to be in love with Michael Phelps, I am in love with his dog.


• Synchronized diving mesmerized me, while other people I know found it absolutely hypnotic. (Maybe I did too.)


• Women’s marathon: 1) what happened to Deena Kastor, and 2) what happened to the fastest pregnant woman on earth, also known as Paula Radcliffe?


• Did you know that women’s beach volleyball uniform requirements are specified down to centimeters, and restrict the maximum coverage the uniforms can provide! In other words, these women cannot wear more clothing if they wanted to, not even tight shorts!!!


• Figure skating should be a part of all Olympics games, because gymnastics, the seemingly equivalent summer sport, is just not the same.

If you are reading this blog, chances are you know me personally. If you know me personally, you probably have already heard that I am training to run in the 112th Boston Marathon on April 21, 2008.

In honor of the Super Tuesday, today I am opening my own poll. Go to my running/fundraising blog, and vote on how fast you think I can run Boston. Hurry, the poll will close on Friday, February 15!

If you would like to be more accurate in your guessing, I have a challenge for you. Donate $5 to Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge (to benefit cancer research), and send me your guess for my race time, and the total mileage I would run while training excluding the race. Click here for me detailed instructions on how to participate in this challenge.

After the race, I will announce 2 winners--best guess for my race time, and best guess for the number of miles run. The winners will receive Amazon gift certificates!!! You can guess as many times as you want!