14 miles, team walk

As expected, it was a small turnout for yesterday’s walk, because most of the women on the team were walking the MORE Half Marathon in Central Park today. Besides Coach Alison, it was me, “Rocket” Roger, and Maureen. Roger (who’s 58, I found out) zoomed ahead of us as usual after getting warmed up. Maureen lives in the area and had already walked for about an hour before the rest of us got there, so she walked a few miles with me and Alison and then went home. Alison has proven to be a very enjoyable walking companion, because: 1) She laughs at my jokes (always a way to get on my good side); and 2) She always does or says something that gives me material for my blog - map spinning, falling on ice, learning to play golf… What?! Yeah, that was my thought.

I’m sure that in reality, my man-style of listening managed to miss a relevant sentence or two - possibly because I was busy interrupting - but whatever Alison was saying, what I heard was, “My grandfather was Greek Orthodox, and that’s how I learned to play golf.” As non sequiturs go, that was a platypus, if you catch my boomerang. What I think she was actually talking about was how she spent a lot of time with her grandfather, who happened to be Greek Orthodox, and one of the things he taught her was how to play golf, but my mind failed to connect the dots I heard in such a sensible way. When I laughed and told her what it sounded like to me, she laughed, too, (see #1 above) and filled in the missing dots.

We didn’t have a particular route mapped out this time with the mileage already figured out, so I carried my GPS navigator to measure mileage. I was wearing my distance-measuring footpod, too, but I’ve never re-calibrated it since switching from running to walking, so it tends to under-count the mileage. There are wrist-mounted GPS options specifically for runners and walkers (like the Garmin Forerunner), but what I had was the navigation unit for my car, and it was small enough and light enough to just carry in my hand.

Our walk started from a library parking lot and we covered about 9 miles of sidewalks and surface streets before getting back to the lot. Coach Lynn (currently out of action because she fell a few days before Alison and hurt her knee) was there to meet us in the lot so we could sign a card for Coach Pat’s honored patient, Joey. Here’s how Pat described Joey in a recent team email:

Joey Cialkowski, ( my honored patient for the last 9 years) is a 14 year old incredible young man who had Leukemia, (ALL) when he was in Kingergarten. Joey relapsed once during this time, and had radiation treatments, which saved his life. 98% of these children go on to full remission, most devastatingly, Joey ended up in the other 2%. Joey was our chapter’s honored patient for the spring/summer season’03, as well as for spring/summer’06.

Almost 2 years ago, Joey developed a high grade, malignant brain tumor, ( stage 3A out of 4) a risk he faced, from the radiation he needed to save his life 8.5 years ago. Joey was a miracle story in 2005, survived incredible odds, braved chemo once again, went into remission, and had his tumor shrink so much that Dr.’s referred to it as scar tissue. Last June, (6 days after his final chemo treatment), Joey traveled to Alaska, and was at the finish line, when his dad, Frank, crossed, after walking the full marathon, and raising almost $16,000 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Joey started 8th grade in West Milford this past September, and has been enjoying his last year in middle school, before the big move to high school, next Sept.

Many of you know, that Joey was diagnosed with a 2nd brain tumor about a month ago, also high grade, and malignant. I found out this past week-end, that Joey’s 2nd tumor is a stage 4 glioma, and without quoting the statistics that Joey’s mother, Arlene, mentioned, I will tell you that Joey’s prognosis for long term survival is not good. Joey’s parents asked me to share this with all of you, and when I asked them what they needed right now, they said the one thing they’d like to request is that you keep Joey in your prayers and thoughts, tell your teams about him, and ask for their prayers as well. Joey will begin chemo again next week again at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, and a subsequent move to Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital will be next on the list, if Joey sees no improvement at St. Joseph’s. Joey’s family, friends, and the many Dr.’s and nurses who have come to love this young boy over the last 9 years, aren’t giving up either, but he needs our prayers, and good thoughts more than ever.

I’ve heard many inspiring stories since I got involved with Team in Training, which is to be expected since everyone is training either in honor or in memory of someone. The inspirational stories fall into two basic categories: happy or sad. The happy ones are hearing about people in remission, and especially people who benefitted from newer treatments that funding from Team in Training has helped develop. Some teammates are survivors themselves, and many got involved because some family member had or has leukemia or some other form of cancer. The sad kind of inspiration comes from hearing about people like Joey who are losing the fight. Both kinds of inspiration are powerful, but they feel different. The first kind is almost like a celebration, feeling good about progress already made and wanting to keep that momentum going. The second kind is more about determination, making you want to contribute to a cure so that eventually everyone can celebrate.

After stopping to top off our inspiration tanks, we still had to add a mile or two to reach the day’s target of 10 miles, so Alison and I headed up a woodsy trail that was adjacent to the library. Thanks to recent rain and snow melt, there were a lot of muddy patches, but we were able to find firm footing most of the way. What we were less successful at finding was a 1- or 2-mile route. We didn’t know where the trail led, but early on it forked, so we went to the right and figured it would eventually loop around and we’d come back on the side we didn’t take. It was a good theory, but didn’t work out that way. I had my trusty GPS Navigator in case we got disoriented, so around the time we gave up hope of the path we were on looping back, I glanced at my navigator just in time to see it shut down as the rechargeable battery ran out. To make a long story shorter - we made a short walk long. Instead of 1-2 miles, we walked another 5, for a total of about 14. I didn’t mind the extra mileage, but I felt a little bad for Alison, who ended up putting in more mileage on this walk than she would do the next day in the MORE Half Marathon. She said she didn’t mind, so I just hope she didn’t regret it on Sunday.

After the walk, I stopped in at the nearby Sneaker Factory as planned to get a new pair of shoes. Besides the discount for TnT participants, the other perk of going there is very knowledgeable staff. This isn’t a store where you just tell them your size and they go get it. They look at your foot, feel the arch, ask if those are the kind of socks you’ll be wearing with them, make you walk a few paces while they watch your stride, and with every pair you try on, they encourage you to step outside the store and walk (or run) a little bit to see how they feel. You definitely get the feeling they want to put you in the right shoes for you. I ended up choosing a pair of Saucony ProGrid Omni 6 Moderate shoes.

And that’s how I learned to play golf.