Book Review: Healing with Words by Diana Raab

In support of breast cancer awareness month, I was asked to read and review Diana Raab's book, Healing with Words.

As the granddaughter of a survivor (who is now 87 and doing well!), I am always intrigued by stories of breast cancer & survival.  The strength it takes a woman to get this diagnosis and to recover from it just has me in awe.  Diana Raab's book did the same.  I always find personal stories a quick and easy read - usually a book I cannot put down.  Diana's book was that from beginning to  end.

Diana Raab, used w/ permission from her website

For me, when I read books about breast cancer survival, it is more about learning more about breast cancer and how one copes with a diagnosis.  Diana didn't leave anything out of her story.  She gave us a rare look into her thoughts, fears and concerns about her diagnosis.  Many authors are too afraid to share such detail with their reader.  Not only did she give us details about her diagnosis and subsequent battle, she also gave us food for thought after each chapter to capture some of our own feelings & thoughts.  I think this could be of particular value to a cancer patient as I have found journaling (or blogging) to be a good way to get through grief in life and I think it would help another patient like Diana cope with their diagnosis.  Some of the questions she poses are the toughest ones to answer.  Will she ever be the same old Diana again?  Will her husband be able to love & desire her?  These are all questions, I am sure, that run through any woman's mind when she receives the diagnosis of breast cancer.

The support Diana received from her family was amazing and she was very cognizant of how her children, spouse & family would be affected.  This book not only educated me, it also informed me of how important it is to complete the self-exams and to know what may or may not be right with your breasts.  Diana uses journaling to help deal with her diagnosis and comfort herself.  Many of us are afraid to do this and even more would be afraid to help others with their words.  Diana is not afraid.

In the news recently, a celebrity my age, Giuliana Rancic, announced she had breast cancer.  I listened to her speak on the Today Show about her diagnosis and was shocked to hear her say that she tried to refuse having a mammogram.  My doctor recommended a baseline mammogram when I turned 35 and I did it.  It will be a great reference as I age.  I am glad to hear Giuliana received her diagnosis in an early stage and she is already on the road to recovery.  Healing with Words would be a great read for her and would help with recovery.

Diana's book is also a great reference for other cancer patients with medical definitions, an appendix of cancer support resources as well as the questions after each chapter with room to journal.

Diana's story is only just beginning with Healing with Words.  Late in the book, she mentions a second diagnosis of cancer - Multiple Myeloma and is beginning another battle.  She ends her book with this passage:

"In spite of everything, I try to wake up every morning happy to be alive and with joy in my heart.  I believe it is very important to surround myself with those who only bring positive and nurturing energy into my life.  Being surrounded by joy brings joy and helps you move forward  toward your dreams."


That passage speaks to me because I strive for the same things in my life and I am finding them more and more every day.  Her optimism is contagious.

Diana's book is available to purchase and you can find out more on website - www.dianaraab.com.  She is generously donating 100% of her proceeds to the Mayo Clinic.

Why do I undersell my accomplishments?

Finishing in 2 hours and 36 minutes at the Columbus (Half) Marathon October 16th was a major accomplishment for me.  The pace ended up just under 12 minutes per mile (11:59) and my BEST time EVER.  Why do I feel the need to tell people about my finish and the qualify it with "I walked the entire race?"  I think some of it could be that when you say you did a race, 9 people out of 10 think you ran it.  Walking a 12 minute pace is quite an accomplishment.  When I first started racing, I thought a 12 minute pace was doable out the gate.  I had no idea what kind of training it would take to get to this pace.

The first Columbus (Half) Marathon I competed in was in 2009.  I finished in a 15:03 minute pace.  That season was a tougher training season.  I signed up for MIT in June and my father had a stroke July 1 that required a lot of travel back and forth on the weekends to Rochester, therefore missing some of the LSDs that are required for marathon training.  I was overweight (roughly 35-37 pounds heavier than I am now) and definitely was not as fit as I could be for that race.  But I still was inspired and fell in love with racing.  I've said before my Dad's illness helped motivate me and I'll say it again.  Life changing.

As I blogged about here, the Columbus Marathon added a competitive walk category this season.  While walkers have always had their own division, we were not eligible for prizes.  You had to do a few extra things in order to qualify for the competitive walk category which I did and I am excited to report I placed FIRST in my age category!!!  I was about 8 minutes behind the 3rd woman overall for the half, but I'll catch her next year!  I am even more excited that 2 of the walkers from my MIT group decided to compete as well!  Deb placed 3rd in her age category and Maryanne placed 2nd in hers!  Works out very well!  I am not sure how many people went the extra mile to compete as walkers, but I am proud of the efforts they all put in.  You can view the results here.  I am not sure what the prizes are (if we get one for age categories or if it is just overall) but I am excited we're all in there as finishers!

I have been asked a lot lately how I have gotten faster.  I think the biggest thing that has changed my time this year is dropping the weight and starting to train my core.  I am working to get the pictures from 2010 and 2011 so I can put together a comparison of how I looked in last year's race to this year's.  You'll see in them that I am walking taller and using my arms better.  Your arms are the key to making you faster - proper arm use makes a big difference in pace.  I am going to continue to reflect on this and will share more once in a new post.

On a different note, did everyone get a chance to see the Northern Lights last night?  I just happened to be outside with the dogs when I noticed that the sky above our neighbor's houses was pinkish red.  I wish I had had my camera with me to snap pictures but then again, they may not have come out!  It was a sight to see and I am glad I had a chance to see them!

Sorry, a post without pictures!  I am on the road for work and I don't have access to my pictures.

What accomplishments of yours do you undersell?  If you saw the Northern Lights, was this your first time seeing them?  It was for me and I'll never forget it!

Commit. Believe. Achieve - 2011 Columbus Half Recap

Wow!  What a race we had yesterday!  It was my 3rd Columbus Half Marathon since 2009 and my 8th half marathon since I became inspired!  I paced one of my 8 races so I only have 7 bibs:

Doesn't everyone save their bibs??

I am not sure why I have been saving them but I have.  I don't do anything with them other than put them in a drawer.  I used to scrapbook but it has been a while.

I woke up race morning a few minutes before my alarm was set to go off.  I had 2 set just in case and neither of them had to buzz!  It was great.  Started getting ready and Dina called to tell me she had gotten up & began vomiting!  She decided she wasn't going to do the race.  I ran over to her house before I headed downtown to get her bib since one of the walkers in my group had not registered but wanted to do it.  I am always grateful on race day that I belong to MIT since they block rooms at the Hyatt for us.  This means clean bathrooms, plenty of time to socialize and take pictures before the race! I stole this picture from their FB page, but it gives you a good idea of how many people are in our mighty group:

Pretty sure they did this during my potty break!

They had lined us all up to take us out to the start and it always works well.  We were there early, found our corrals easily and went on our ways!  I was in corral F and the rest of the walkers were in G, although I am not sure why.  I only brought my cell phone camera with me so I didn't get a lot of pre-race pictures but here are a few:

Maryanne, me & Mary. Mary looks scared! Love her shirt!

This is Jeff. I work with him. This was his first full!

Competitive Walkers had to wear this bib.

Onto the race!  My goal for this race was to finish under my last personal best at my 7th Half Marathon which was 2:41 for 12:18 minute miles.  That as all I wanted to do.  Last year, I had trouble finding the New Albany Walking Club pacers but this year, I didn't have any trouble at all.  I found Larry Smith who was pacing the 2:45 by himself.  I followed him around the start line a bit and made sure he knew I'd be with him for the race.  We were in corral F and able to cross the start about 10 minutes into the race.  I can't remember how that compares for other years but we were off and walking!  Larry's goal with a 2:45 finishing pace was to keep everyone at 12:30.  Weaving in and out of people (we saw a bride with her bridal party running the race), kept us moving at a pretty good clip.  We were fairly confused when we saw the 3:15 pacers and the 3:30 pacers from New Albany AHEAD of us.  Especially considering the 5:30 full pace team was behind us by a bit.  They definitely were in the wrong place!  Larry made the first few miles go by really quickly.  I couldn't believe it.  Our first mile was 12:24 which is just under where he needs to be as a pacer.  I think somewhere around 4, he told me to go ahead of him as he was pacing too quick for a 2:45 finish (I think he said he was 1.5 minutes under).  That was all I needed!  I felt good the entire race - I don't remember ever thinking "this sucks" or "I can't do this anymore."  I haven't walked completely alone in a race in a while - I had done that at the Cleveland Half in 2010, but I had to this time since Dina was ill.  I met people along the course.  There was Anne from Akron.  We walked through the backside of the Franklin Park Conservatory together and I remembered the hellish Cinco de Julio  race that went through there.  The weather sure was different.  Anne complimented me and said I was one of the very few wearing the "competitive walker" badge that she thought really was competing.  At that point, she told me to not let her hold me back.

From there, I kept passing people using my same methods as past races, tagging their backs.  I'll be honest, a lot of the backs I tagged to pass where labeled with the "competitive walker" badges.  I caught up to a woman named Dorothy who was doing the full.  I can't remember where she was from but I believe she had lived in German Village for 5 years.  We entered Victorian Village and headed onto Broad Street together.  She was older than me and I was impressed she was walking the full and at the pace she was at!  I did end up passing her as well but my few minutes with her was enjoyable.  Somewhere along Broad Street, near mile 7, I saw a person down and prayed for them for the next little bit and thanked God for feeling as good as I did.  Whomever it was is still on my mind & I hope they are okay.  In German Village, there were 3 people cheering on the right of me that I knew and that helped spur me on more.  Then to my left was one of the walkers from my group who wasn't racing.  She shouted "You look strong!" And I answered that I felt strong because I really did.  I was having one helluva race!  Turning at Schiller Park, I saw a runner who had walked with my group in the spring but wanted to try to run a half this season.  I tagged her back and caught her on the corner. We went under the picture crew at Schiller Park together and we made sure we cheered and looked up. It was nice to be with someone I knew.  My mind was remembering my first Columbus Marathon and that the upcoming final turn to High Street was not my favorite.  High Street went by pretty quickly.  I lost Nancy and enjoyed some time with another MITer for a bit who was saying at that point that she thought I'd come in at 2:30.  I was hopeful but okay with being a bit more than that.  Further down the road, somewhere between 11 & 12, there was another person down & we got briefly halted as the emergency vehicle came to pick them up.  I was thankful it wasn't me and prayed again for that person.  A lot of the rest of the race is a blur but I do remember coming up to the finish hearing another MIT shout "Go Laurie!" and that spurred me onto the finish!

For some reason, the finish seemed really far away as I went down that hill but hearing Hannah shout "Go Laurie" at that point brought me in.  I'll admit - I was close to tears and watching my Garmin too much!  I knew I had a PR and I was thrilled to cross the finish!  My goal was realized and my final time was 2:36:48 which was an average pace of 11:59 minute miles.  We had to turn in our back bibs at the finish so I am not sure how I ended up ranking among competitive walkers.  There's info out there but I am not sure what's right.  The race says we'll know more mid-week.  I am excited but right now, the results say I was 7 of 87 in my age category so if all of them registered as competitive walkers, I may not get anything.  We shall see!  I am not even sure how they are giving out prizes.  I guess I will have to find out!  In the meantime, I'll have this:



And I also let the pups try it on today:

You're holding me back so I stop moving around!

Why would I want to wear this?

After the finish, it was very well organized for you to move threw to get a foil wrap, a medal and a post picture.  They handed us a bag of food but it was mostly processed stuff (and gasp! a banana) that I didn't eat.  In fact, its still on my counter.  Glad I brought a Zone Perfect bar with me.  That helped!  Snowville Creamery was giving out samples of chocolate milk which is the perfect recovery drink!  From there, I had to get to the competitive walker table, turn in my bib and watch for my other walkers to come back in.  A great race and I can't wait to do it again in 2012!

Has anyone ever seen a wedding happen at a marathon?  We had one yesterday before it started!  Does anyone else think about the people who fell ill during the race for the days after?

I'm ready!

I feel 100% ready for tomorrow's race!  I've avoided a cold, feel pretty good and getting ready to head to bed early now!  Let's see how long it takes me to sleep!

Green bib on back, orange on front!

Picked up my race packet & my competitive walking bib!  Just need to get it mostly ready before I head out at 5:30 tomorrow morning!  You can watch how I am doing either by following my Facebook page if you are my friend or looking at Tweets on Twitter: @lauriewalksfast.   The Columbus Marathon is using a system called TweetMyTime which will give updates to both places!  Should be cool!  I am interested to see how well it does.  Hopefully it's not an over share for anyone!!  I'll be thinking about redeeming the Chipotle coupon at the bottom of my bib for the last 2 miles of the race!  We have actually made it a tradition the last 2 years I've done the race to go to Chipotle afterwards so we'll be doing it this time too!  Thanks, Columbus Marathon! Today was the perfect Saturday lead up to the big day tomorrow - 2 miles with my MIT friends, the Worthington Farmer's Market and then the race expo.  A little shopping and hanging out with Steve and the day was perfect!  I feel rested!  I've been having stiffness in my left calf and I visited a chiropractor at the Expo who I may just have to marry.  He brought me to tears but I feel so much better!  I am actually going to call Monday for a consultation since our insurance will cover it.

I sure hope all the others open up too!

Today is Sweetest Day and we never really fall victim to the Hallmark holidays but I'd like to think Steve actually pulled this beautiful rose out of our garden for me.  Either way, its the prettiest rose we have had all season!  I am glad we get to enjoy it inside.

We went to Dollar Tree today and picked up some stuffed caterpillars for the dogs!  Yes, they are spoiled but they love them!  They had these little felt feet that they pulled off (and I am happy to say none went down their hatches) and they played with them like it was going out of style.  Riley wasn't a fan of sitting still but Annie did.

Why does my dog look everywhere but at me in pictures??

I can hardly wait until tomorrow!!  It should be a great day!  I am targeting to finish in less than my New Albany Walking Classic time (less than 2:41) and I know I can do it!  Good luck to all of the walkers, run/walkers & runners competing in tomorrow's race!!!  I look forward to joining 16,999 of my closest friends at the start line!!

Eggplants aren't to be grown inside!

This week has been dragging on and on!  I wish it'd end already!  I guess a lot of it is the anticipation for my 3rd Columbus Marathon (my 8th half marathon overall) that is killing me.  I am more excited this year than past years because of the group I've been coaching.  I am excited to see some of them complete their first races!  It'll be great!

During one of the Old Worthington Farmer's Markets this summer, I bought an eggplant starter for $1 because Steve loves eggplant and I thought for sure it'd do well.  All summer, we'd see flowers pop up on it to only have them die.  When the season was ending, I decided to try it inside - it still had some flowers on it and we thought for sure it'd produce!  We planted it and the basil we had been growing in pots and brought them in.  Well, someone in our house thinks its a bad idea to grow an eggplant inside and did this to it:

Pretty sure I can blame the brown furry boy in our house for this massacre!

Since it met its untimely death, I've moved it outside to our carport area.  It'll eventually move into the lawn waste bin but for now, that's where it sits.  Riley has to walk past the pot all the time and he sniffs at it as if it may offend him again!  Too funny!  He tends to pick leaves off other houseplants but this is the first one he has destroyed.  Glad it wasn't one that could make him ill!  He leaves the basil alone and I am not sure I understand why since it smells & tastes good!

I've been really following the taper schedule for the Columbus Half as much as I can.  I've done a variety of things in the past and I am really trying to listen to my body this time and push it a little less than I have before.  I went to TRX Monday night and I'll go to a beginner's yoga today but otherwise, very minimal cross training has happened this week.  I am ready to climb the walls but I know it'll be worth it Sunday as I cross the finish!  I have to remember to stop by the competitive walker table when I hit the Expo tomorrow. If you are racing as a walker Sunday, and haven't read the rules for competitive walkers, check out my blog post on the subject here.  I am so glad I work from home as I keep seeing posts about colds going around and other illnesses.  I have been blessed thus far and hope this doesn't jinx me as Dina just got sick too!!  My only concern now is some tightness in my left calf after walking but it usually works its way out.  I am going to find a curb or maybe even pick up a nifty Pro Stretch Step at Fleet Feet to work it out!

Have your dogs destroyed any plants?  Anyone else ready to climb the walls during a taper week??

Tapering isn't for the weak

The weather has been AH-MAZ-ING and we spent some time outside on Sunday working on cleaning my car out.  It was a mess!  The dogs were just chilling with us as they usually do - I am not sure why they don't really leave the yard since there's no fence on it but that's another story.  Our boy, Riley, was sitting at the end of the driveway just watching the world go by and I had to join him.  Annie got all jelly and had to come join us which resulted in an adorable picture.

I swear I am not forcing them to sit with me!

We had gone to yoga that morning at PAI so we hadn't gotten dressed yet since we decided to clean the hair mobile.  I still am amazed that Steve keeps trying yoga.  He actually had a teacher at PAI he thought I needed to meet.  He was right - she was easy to understand, her poses weren't too bad and I worked out a muscle kink I had been having.  I've been feeling great all week.  For those of you who know Steve, the idea he is doing yoga is amazing, but that is another story for another day.  I am keeping quiet hoping that some of my exercise routine will wear off on him.

This is taper week for the Columbus Half on Sunday.  I am pretty excited about this race - not only because I've done this one before (this will be my 3rd time) but for the walkers I've been coaching this season.  I can hardly wait to watch them cross the finish line with the smiles on their faces!  I am inspired by all of them!  This has been one of my most rewarding seasons and I can't wait for the next session of MIT to start!  I always wonder what the right rules are with pre-race carb loading, etc.  I know it is important to build up your glycogen storage before the race but to not over do it.  Carb load is different depending on what you are doing but it goes across both runners and walkers.  The truth is, your body has a limited capacity to store carbs.  The ideal time to have a carbohydrate rich food is between 16 and 18 hours prior to a race.  That puts you about 2-4 on Saturday.  It isn't a big deal to wait until later on Saturday (5-6) but don't go much past that or you'll wake up with a still full belly.  I can tell you - I have done this before and it is not fun!!  I am really good at drinking water so it is easy for me to hydrate during the week prior however, what I am bad at is increasing the amount I drink per day before the race.  I've rad that I should add a glass or two if I hydrate well as it is.   All I know is I hate to have to take a pitstop on a race but I'll do it if I have to.  I'll follow the same routine I usually do before a race.  I may get up a little earlier so my food has more time to process but it'll all work out.  I need to stop doing cross training this week.  One of the many articles I read said it was okay to yoga if you have done it before, so I'll still do that this week but I cancelled my next core training class for tomorrow.

A few things are left on my pre-race check like making sure my Droid X2 cooperates.  I have been having issues with it restarting on its own and all kinds of stuff like that.  It's been a joy.  I've been using it for my music during races and it's got to fully work or I won't be happy Sunday!

In other news, I have a super big addiction to water bottles so I have to enter this giveaway sponsored by Running on Words.  I guess it'd be okay if you enter too but I plan to win!

What do you usually do during a taper week?  Am I the only one with an obsession with water bottles???

I do other things besides exercise

Looking at my past posts, there has been a lot more talk about exercise, races, etc. then ever before.  I promise I do other things besides exercise!  But, before I go into that, let me post one picture:

These ladies inspire me.  Maryanne, me & Mary after their first 12 miler!

One of the reasons I love love coaching with MIT is meeting people and making friends.  This season I have had the pleasure of training with these two wonderful women who inspire me.  Maryanne and Mary are both training for their first half next weekend at the Columbus Marathon!  Mary had a surgery during the season and by her reports (her daughter confirmed!), she was up and walking around the hospital immediately after!  You can't stop her!  Maryanne is the mother of one of the MIT Lucky 13's and is excited to pin on a competitive badge for walkers next weekend!  She checked the times for the 70 & up category and feels like she could place!  I'll be rooting for both of them and the rest of the walkers too!

Onto the non-exercise related portion of this post!  We read in the weekender section of the Columbus Dispatch last weekend about a festival called the Prairie Peddler just outside of Butler, OH.   We decided to go - sounded like fun!  They had all kinds of things going on from crafts to food to demonstrations.  I'll admit - the drive there took a little longer than an hour because we sat in bumper to bumper traffic to get into the festival for like 3 miles.  We weren't fans of the wait but we found a few places to buy cheap pumpkins and stopped on the way home.  I actually took along a book I've been asked to review on my blog and got most of it done.  Some of the crafters were really inventive!  One man was making wooden bears out of tree stumps!  I was afraid to get to close to him!  We found these really cool gords made into Halloween decorations:

These faces made me laugh!  The black one is a cat.

We walked away from them at first and decided if the one we liked was still there when we got back, we'd buy it.  We ended up with this one:

As you can tell, I wasted no time putting it up!

An amazing pumpkin carver turned a pumpkin into an ad for the Prairie Festival:

Some people just have a lot of time on their hands.

After that, we saw a real scarecrow scaring the crap out of people!  He didn't get me!  I wanted to have my picture taken with him but he was gone when we walked back by:

He was having way too much fun scaring people!

Of course, we had to partake in some food.  Steve bought cracklins which is basically a pork rind.  I've never tried one and never will.  There were women in line to buy some and they didn't even know what they were.  Uh, ladies, why would you want to eat fried pork skin??!!  No one should.  YUCK!  I chose some bison chili which was yummy and then Steve held me down and forced me to enjoy this treat:

What? This doesn't look like good taper week food?? (apple fritters BTW)

They actually had vendors selling food under canopies that looked like this:

I think we should all live like this for a week. Ha!

It was a nice treat to head to this festival.  I think we'd go again next year but get off on 95 instead of 97 because there was way less traffic!  Lesson learned!  There were lots of crafters but without a lot of cash, only one thing could come home.  We didn't eat enough there (they ran out of food at a lot of the vendors late in the day so I say get there early!) so we went to the Amish restaurant down the road to eat.  Yum!  The weather couldn't have been more perfect today and we're on tap for day after day of beautiful weather this week.  Too bad I have to work!  On a day like today, I remembered why I was happy to get married in October!

Any fall festivals you like to attend?  Try anything new this year you HAVE to go to next year?  Any foods your significant other likes that you can't stand the thought of??  We definitely will keep Prairie Peddler in mind for 2012 as well!

September Races (besides my half)

Is it bad that I had to look at old posts to see if I actually posted about the races I did in September outside my half?

Late September, M3S Sports puts on a pretty cool race along with the Oktoberfest at the fairgrounds, the Oktoberfest Meiler Vier.  Basically it is 2 laps around the fairgrounds following the tapping of the keg.  Your goodie bag is pretty awesome: coupons for a brat and cream puff from Schmidt's and a beer to be enjoyed as soon as you are done racing!  Pretty awesome!  I was all too happy to say yes to pacing this race this year!  I love the idea of a Friday night race too!! We were assigned to pace a 14 minute per mile finishing in 56 minutes.  We came in just under - 55:44.  I was pretty happy with that!  The best part was someone who passed by us as we finished and thanked us for being there - we were keeping her in line the whole race and she was able to muster up enough to finish ahead of us and beat the time she had hoped for!  I love pacing and it was awesome to finally have someone thank us instead of acting like we have the plague!  After the race I got to hang out with some of the Lucky 13's from MIT who are becoming my friends and biggest supporters:

I am excited to be a part of this group!

If you go to the M3S Sports page for Oktoberfest I linked to above, you'll see Judi on the right hand side after the Charity Newsies logo.  Picked up some more bling along the way:

Not sure if I like this year's or last year's medal better.

2010 Medal. Which do you like better?

After the race, it was home to relax as we had 11 miles on the schedule with MIT the next morning.  It was a lot of miles but I was able to enjoy it with multiple walkers from my group and I got to finish up the mileage with 2 of the new walkers and 1 returning walker.  This was the first time I've ever seen a pace car to help us finish up miles! Judi's mom is walking her first half at Columbus and she decided to follow us back to the school as we finished.  The story there is pretty cool and I know I'll blog about it soon.  Then again, it'll be hers to tell on her blog.

Sunday was officially my last race for race club.  It was the EAS 5K or 10 miler.  I decided to do just a 5K there because of the miles I had already done that weekend.  There were only 27 people in the race and I am pretty sure I was the only person who walked the whole thing but either way, they handed me a plaque as I finished that said "First Female Walker 5K:"

Does the award count if there were no other competitors?

Group picture with 3 other ladies who finished up the 5K with me:

Me, Liberty, Laura & Kristen

My official race time for EAS was 38:25.  I was pretty happy with that - even if it wasn't a PR.  My music died during the race and we walked (or ran) through a lovely trail out at Three Creeks in Groveport that I've not been on before.  I was glad for the change from Olentangy Trail.  We are really lucky here in Columbus to have as many metro parks as we do to exercise on.

Are there any fall races in your area that are a must do for you every year?  Do you have nice, paved trails to walk or run on like we do here?