{"id":587,"date":"2016-05-13T21:09:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T21:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/?p=587"},"modified":"2016-05-13T21:09:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T21:09:17","slug":"unstoppable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/friends\/unstoppable\/","title":{"rendered":"Unstoppable"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On April 23,\u00a0I ran my first ten miler. This race was incredibly special to me for multiple\u00a0reasons. It was the Chapel Hill 10 Miler that benefitted UNC Lineberger, which I wanted to run last year but I couldn’t participate because I was in the midst of receiving chemotherapy there.\u00a0This year, Jason signed up for it, and I\u00a0was really excited to challenge myself to run farther than I ever had with the person who was with me 368 days prior as I rang the bell signifying the end of chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

I also was excited to use it\u00a0to continue to improve my health and strength moving further away from the damage the cancer and chemotherapy did to my body. I trained for 7 weeks (minus a week when I had the flu), and set my goal for 11:00 minute\/mile. Through training, I tried striking a balance of running enough so that I would be able to successfully complete the run while listening to my body when it gave me signs that I needed \u00a0to rest and recover. I ended up logging more miles than were probably necessary, but it helped me be able to stand confidently on the starting line.<\/p>\n

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The race was challenging. The first 5 had more hills than I include in my training, but I settled in and found my pace with the encouragement of Jay-Z, Rihanna, Eminem, and Drake (plus a few boy bands I won’t mention). Mile 6 had a glorious\u00a0downhill that pushed me to a sub-8 minute mile for that portion and 7 was a pleasant roll through a woodsy neighborhood.\u00a0Then I hit mile 8… I studied the course and knew miles 8-9 included the Laurel Hill Challenge with a 200 foot vertical climb in 0.8 of a mile. At that point in the race, I was coming off of a good stretch beating my split time and had the mindset of “less than 20 minutes, I’m done!” I also had “Go Hard or Go Home” blasting in my headphones, and felt pumped, although I knew my body was tired. I looked up and saw the flag signaling the start of the Laurel Hill Challenge and couldn’t see the top\u00a0of the hill. I realized this part of my run was symbolic of my past year and a half since being diagnosed. Although I had done everything I could to prepare, I could not know every detail of the journey or exactly what would happen. I had to push forward in the face of the unknown. I couldn’t stop despite any obstacles or challenges, because I wanted to reach the finish line.<\/p>\n

I ran the hill until my breath was heavy and heart rate reached a point that I had to walk. I would take a few steps at a slow pace to catch my breath, before mustering untapped strength to run another stint. This continued for 9 minutes and 10 seconds. Then I reached the finish flag of Laurel Hill Challenge, and made it into the final mile. I saw buildings that I recognized from driving to oncology\u00a0appointments. In this final stretch, I fought tears and am not sure if I was really breathing. All of the emotion of the past year and a half\u00a0hit me. Almost one year after finishing chemotherapy, as I ran for the cancer center that saved me, I finally felt healthy. Cancer\u00a0knocked and slowed\u00a0me down, but it didn’t stop me.\u00a0In those last two brutal miles, I realized that pushing forward and being unstoppable was my mindset with facing cancer and running the race and moreover is how I approach life.<\/p>\n

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I finished in 1:36 , beating my goal by about 1:30\/mile, which was a great accomplishment, but more importantly I came to understand\u00a0myself better.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 23,\u00a0I ran my first ten miler. This race was incredibly special to me for multiple\u00a0reasons. It was the Chapel Hill 10 Miler that benefitted UNC Lineberger, which I wanted to run last year but I couldn’t participate because I was in the midst of receiving chemotherapy there.\u00a0This year, Jason signed up for it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,8,24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-feelings","7":"category-friends","8":"category-post-chemotherapy-life","9":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaleykaraffa.com\/dlbcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}