Bad news and good news

Hey everybody. I missed posting in what turned out to be a pretty eventful couple of weeks, so let me bring you up to speed.

The bad news: Jews for Jogging is going singular. Jew for Jogging. Unfortunately, Beth had to drop out of training this past week due to a knee injury. You can read more details about it in her post below, but the long and the short of it is, Beth won't be running the marathon. I am, however, pleased to say that she is still coming to New York to help with my charity poker tournament, and she is also planning on going to Disney to cheer for me.

Wondering what happens with the donation you already made? Well, if you donated directly to me, your donation still counts towards my fundraising goal. If you donated directly to Beth and your donation was processed, your donation will become a general donation to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you used our joint website to donate, half of your donation goes to my fundraising, and half goes to LLS as a general donation. If you've mailed money to Beth that hasn't yet been sent to LLS for processing, you can expect to get your check back in the next few days. At your option, you are more than welcome to keep the money, donate to my fundraising, or donate to LLS. If you'd like to submit a contribution to my fundraising, please mail it to:

Adam Moser
14 Linford Road
Great Neck, NY 11021

or donate online at:

http://bit.ly/moser

So how can there be good news? Well, I'm still running the marathon, and I am still committed to raising at least $3,700 on my own. Of that, I've raised over $2,000, including money that I sent to LLS for processing a few days ago but hasn't yet shown up in my account.

On top of that, while she will not be fundraising, I am happy to announce that my girlfriend, Shelby, will be running the race with me. Don't feel bad that she signed up too late to participate in the fundraising aspect - this will be her sixth marathon, and over the first five, culminating with this month's NYC marathon, she's already raised over $12,000 for LLS.

And, on top of that...I set a new personal longest distance ever today! A few weeks ago, I bested my longest run by breaking through the 10 mile mark, but today I went further than I ever have before, including walking. The previous high was 13.1 miles, set as a run/walk at the 2004 Virginia Beach Half Marathon and matched last week as a run. Last week's run, incidentally, was about 39 minutes shorter than at Virginia Beach, at 2 hours flat. Today I went 14, and I ran the whole way, finishing in about 2:09.

My legs are absolutely killing me.

Last bit of good news - I'm keeping the "grinds my gears" segment. Today, what really grinds my gears is my own perception of distance. I estimated the distance to the Throgs Neck Bridge as 7 miles, and figured I'd just do an out-and-back. I was off by 2 miles. In both directions. Running 4 miles right around my house at the end of a 14 mile run is much, much less fun than you might think.

In closing, I'm very sorry to see Beth go, I was really looking forward to running the race with her. But, LLS will still get some great support from people like you, I'm now really looking forward to running the race with Shelby, and Beth is going to try to compete against me in a triathlon next summer, since I obviously destroyed her this time around. So all in all, it sucks, but I'm still very excited about the marathon.

And yes, I will still be blogging. See you next week.