Support Team Iron Mountain Movement in the Weekend to End Breast Cancer
Words from Team Captain Connie Hol..
In the winter of 2006 I joined the trail running group. Since that time, I have been fortunate to have met some very wonderful people and have made some great friendships. Keri was always an inspiration and provided encouragement and support to everyone who has registered with her clinics.
On April 3, 2009, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. In the last year I have undergone lymph node surgery, 8 rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and 28 radiation treatments. I continued to run throughout my treatments, albeit very slowly toward the end of chemo. Keri also encouraged and supported me to complete the ½ marathon in San Francisco last October (2 days prior to my 8th and final chemotherapy treatment).
Team Iron Mountain Movement
Last year my daughter, Corrie raised over $3,500.00 and walked in the Weekend Walk to End Breast Cancer. My family and friends all supported her and were very proud of her accomplishment. This year, my daughter, myself, Angela Lamb, Shannon Stephenson, Gisele Pomerleau and 4 other women have formed a team under Iron Mountain Movement and are committed to raise $2,000.00 each towards this worthwhile cause. If you would like to make a donation, please click here to see our team page.
Each of the members of this team has been touched by this disease either through family members or friends and I am sure that you have as well.
We will be walking together to support the BC Cancer Foundation to provide medical and emotional support to women going through this journey to continue their research on finding a cure for this disease.
I would like to thank everyone in the running group that supported me emotionally throughout this last year and thank Iron Mountain Movement for sponsorship.
Connie Hol
Birthday trail run
I am not there yet (actually not even close) but when it comes time to celebrate my 50th birthday I think that I might like to take a trip, I could even be ready to cruise by then, somewhere exotic, or maybe a party, surprise of course, with a theme, that’s just me.
Tomorrow, Ron from my running group turns 50, if you have met Ron before you will remember him, Ron is memorable! To celebrate his 50th birthday Ron wanted to run around Hayward Lake, a 17km trail run, ok I’m in. I met Ron back in January when he signed up for my Intermediate Road/Trail Clinic, we started our runs at 30 minutes and by the end of the session in March the group was running a comfortable 60 minutes on the trails. In my half marathon training clinics, I use the Hayward Lake loop as one of our final long runs, it takes you pretty much the same amount of time to run that 17km loop of trail as it does to run a 21.1km road route (for those that don’t run, an average time to run 10km on the road is about 60 minutes). It was going to be a bit of a push, but I knew that Ron had the tenacity to pull it off.
So, Ron and I met this morning and started our trek around Hayward Lake. We started from the main parking lot so we had a 6km stretch of trail with 3 bumps (decent sized hills), which was the perfect warm-up for the other side of the lake which is just plain undulating. When we arrived at the Ruskin Dam we were met by Marcia, Kimberley, Anna, Theresa, Jody and Mona from the Intermediate R&T Clinic, they cheered Ron in and then joined us for our remaining 11km. The ladies were fabulous, such a great source of support for Ron as well as each other, for most of them this was their longest run to date as well. By the time we hit the Stave Dam, Ron was just about out of gas (I mean that in every sense), I don’t think that we had heard any obnoxious spandex comments for quite some time, so he must have been tired!
He rockstar’d on. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes, lots of woohooing, a package of Cliff Shots, a couple of falls, plenty of mud and a bit of rain to make Ron’s birthday wish happen. Happy Birthday Ron, thanks for letting us celebrate with you! Cheers!
Mission accomplished!