Five months to race day!

It has been a big week.

Michelle got back from Minnesota, looking and feeling amazing after her treatment and her scoliosis traction chair arrived and we set up a special work-out area for her to do her three hours of exercises each day.

Michelle's great friend, Skye is visiting from Australia and we have been revisiting lots of the girls' favorite places around LA and the sun has been rising later so morning walks with Clancy have been mostly in the dark.

There is a lot of commotion in our apartment in the morning, vibrating chairs, yawning dogs, Vita-mixes blending superfood smoothies, exercises and stretches. By the time we leave for work, sometimes it feels like we have lived half a day already.

That's one of the amazing benefits of taking on something that is bigger than you imagined you could achieve. It makes you feel alive, you get more done and you live life more. A sense of purpose combined with a little fear seems to be quite motivating!

Adjusting and fitting everything in has definitely been a theme lately and so to continue that on, I have a few announcements to make:

1. The team is now called "The Running Backs" and the name of this blog has been updated to reflect that. This project is now bigger than just me running for Michelle. We have an entire community building around us. We also have the vision that this project will form a template that other scoliosis patients can use to involve their communities in their treatment.

and

2. In addition to raising money for Michelle's treatment, we are also now working to raise money for a scholarship for treatment through The Clear Insitute. Whether this be purchasing a traction chair for someone who can't afford it or assisting with the costs of the intensive on-site treatment is yet to be determined. Michelle is currently to talking to the Clear Institute to work out what would work best.

For me, taking on the challenge of running has grown and grown as I have shared what I am doing and people have come on board and shown their support. I am now not just running for myself, or Michelle or to raise money. I am running for everyone who has shown so much support and given me so much encouragement. Thank you so much.

The feeling of being challenged and stretched is awesome.

With five months to race day, there is more than enough time to get in to great shape and join The Running Backs on March 20, 2011 as we run the LA Marathon.

If you have ever considered that you would like to run or walk a Marathon, please consider joining our team and taking on something bigger than all of us.

We would love to have you on the team.

For more info on the Marathon, visit http://www.lamarathon.com/

I came across a great quote the other day by George Bernard Shaw - I hope you like it:

"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got hold of for the moment, and i want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."