Run the Great Wall to Accomplish Great things! Please send in a donation...these organizations need your help!

David and I ran over 14 miles yesterday preparing to run the Great Wall Marathon and Half Ma rathon respectively. During that long run I thought a lot about our blessings and about what a difficult year it has been for of our families and friends with deaths and illnesses. Usually this time of year you will see a plea from me to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as I try to do an annual triathlon to raise money for them. This year in lieu of my annual fundraising, I would ask that you donate to an organization affiliated with cancer or the heart in our name in recognition of David's and my efforts to run the Great Wall and in honor of those for whom we are running.

Our honorees:
My Uncle George died of colon cancer in August 2006. My Uncle Harry died of esophageal cancer on September 2006. My mother was diagnosed and operated on in May 2006 for breast cancer and was lucky to have had it removed so radiation and chemo was unnecessary. She has continued to have a series of reconstructive surgeries. Two friends, Lynn and Michael, both had their sisters, Colleen and Penny, pass away this year from breast cancer. My friend BJ's sister, Faye , is currently fighting breast cancer.

David's mother, Elizabeth, passed away in August 2006 of a stroke. My father has recently had a stint put in his heart and is working towards being able to get back into his normal routine.

Here are the organizations we urge you to donate to in honor of those above (please send us a note once you do so we can thank you):
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society www.lls.org
The American Cancer Society www.cancer.org
The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation www.komen.org
The American Stroke Foundation www.americanstroke.org
The American Heart Association www.americanheart.org

Our honorees' struggles are in our hearts as we train and run the marathon/half marathon. If there is someone you would like us to add to our list, please let us know! We will have their names on our shirts as we run.

A little bit about the run and out training:
The literature recommends that you be prepared! We've been told that a rule of thumb is to add 50% to your usual time for a marathon or half marathon and that's what it will take to finish. We have been training since December and I am averaging 15 -30 miles a week and David is doing close to double that! I have been walking up and down the 33 flights of stairs in our building a couple times a week to prepare while David has run up and down every hill in Hong Kong.

On May 19 we will board a bus in Beijing at around 3 am for the 3 hour journey to Huangyaguan and the fort that contains the start/finish line. The run for both half and full marathoners will start at 7:30am. All runners will run approximately 7 kilometres (4 miles) on the actual Great Wall of China. The Wall covers 3700 miles, and if rebuilt five meters high and one meter thick would encircle the entire globe. Thousands of workers died of exhaustion as they built it and their corpses are believed to have been buried in the Wall's foundations. The road and path going up to, across and back down the Great Wall is steep, and most runners plan to do it by a combination of walking and running in order to avoid acidy leg muscles. Here's link to the site - check out some of the pictures! http://www.great-wall-marathon.com/ The weather should be sunny with temperatures ranging from 77 to 95 degrees with a breeze on the Wall and heat and humidity in the valley.

We'll let you know our results! Thanks for your support and generosity.

Love, Allison & David