With 2 months & counting to the Minneapolis Marathon with TNT- I am making the next 7 Mondays "Motivation Monday". My Mom told me about this song, "I won't let go" by Rascal Flatts. I first heard it on the radio and half way through; but I could not stop the tears from falling. I dedicate this to all of the people fighting cancer today. You are not alone- and I won't let go!!

"I won't let go" by Rascal Flatts- video on youtube

Mondays are the hardest days for me to get out of bed in the morning; I fight the urge to turn off the alarm and roll over. But as this event gets closer I need to harness all of the energy that I have in my body and get my butt to the gym. This past Saturday I walked 8 miles for…for well… the first time ever I think. Perhaps I may have done an 8 mile walk once when I was younger- but this was different.

I can always tell when I get to the 2 mile mark. My body wants to rebel- my legs ache and that little voice in my head says “you don’t really want to do this anymore…” But I tell that voice to shut it- and I keep going. But around the 5 mile mark, I start to feel good. Like I could keep going forever. But I learned this weekend that at 7 miles I have to make my legs work, will them to keep going. I have to tell myself that I have no other choice but to continue.

That little mind game makes me think of all of the people in my life that have, or had cancer- they had no choice but to continue. Because giving up means that fight only ends one way. They got up every day and went to their treatment- they fought everyday to survive. How many of us can say we fought for our lives? So far this morning I have gotten 2 emails from vendors that I work with, one lost her husband last July to pancreatic cancer, and another lost her mother in ’97 to biliary cancer.

The longer I am involved with TNT the more connections that I find to this disease. And that saddens me deeply. I wish it were the other way around. But that is why I am doing this- to make it the other way. To lessen the instances that keep coming up, to fight this disease one mile, one dollar at a time.