Kyle Garlett...Heart Transplant Recipient and Triathlete

What an amazing story Kyle has to tell. I have to thank my buddy Ron Skinner for sending me the story, and now I send it out to you all. This man has conquered several bouts with the cancer Hodgkin's Disease, the affects of radiation and chemotherapy, has a heart transplant, and other related aliments. The audio story is about 10 minutes long but it is well worth listening to...you will truly be inspired by his strong desire to accomplish his athletic goal of participating in the Hawaii Ironman.

http://www.enduranceplanet.com/public/281.cfm

the other woman; me or her?

Gosh, you'd think he'd be a little more discreet on his blog about his crush on Uta. I thought I was the only one back in '94 but apparently I was wrong. (Not able to post a comment so glad I have access to the blog...in case it gets out of hand with Uta type material)
Marian :-)

Uta...sweet Uta has been found!

One of my major winter time/post heart surgery goals was to sort through all my running paraphernalia and make room for more paraphernalia to come. My God, the stuff I collected over the years was amazing. Everything from racing bibs, photos, 10 year old energy bars, every kind of gadget invented to secure your timing chip to your shoe, rock-hard sport jelly beans, posters, loads of first aid items, etc. etc. etc. It's amazing what one can collect at all the marathon expos. It's like Halloween...you know what I'm talking about. You and your running buddies gather in your hotel room, dump on the floor all the crap you collected, and you start trading. I'll trade you a travel size can of Adidas deodorant for two of your Snickers bars.

So what's up with Uta? Back in the early 1990's when I was getting back into running marathons, I started paying more attention to what was going on in the world of marathoning and how to train properly. I also started to read about world class marathoners...thus enter Uta Pippig from Germany. It was her accomplishment in 1993, winning the NYC Marathon, and in 1994, winning the Boston Marathon, (and her killer smile and good looks) that caught my attention...but it was her July 1994 Runner's World cover story and photo-log that made me a captive fan. One of the few Runner's World issues I did save and found in one of the boxes was that July 1994 issue.

Travel 13 years into the future to the 2007 Boston Marathon. I was running the 2007 Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC) in support of raising funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. My buddies Bill Parady and John Clidas were also running Boston and I invited them to the Dana-Farber pasta feed, which included a number of presentations and ceremonies. I totally freaked out when I saw that Uta Pippig was a major speaker and supporter of the DFMC...actually, I think I began to sweat and my face turned red. I also think my excitement was a little obvious! You can only imagine how excited I was to meet and chat with her later in the evening. I think I sweat more while talking to her than I did running the marathon!

Boston 2007 was a marathoner's dream come true for many reasons. Not only did I meet Sweet Uta but I had a chance to see and hear many other Boston Marathon legends speak....that's another story for another time. Gee, I wonder what else I'll discover in the boxes I have yet to unpack...stay tuned.

Start of something good!

Boy, it sure felt good to be back into the running community. Alaska's largest running event, the Alaska Heart Run, was held yesterday and it was a grand event. About 6,500 runners and walkers participated in the event. Among the participants, and wearing bib #1, was a young boy named Shawn who received a heart transplant in summer 2008. My running the race was meager compared to Shawn's; however, this event marks the start of my official running comeback...hooray!

Marian and I joined Hannah and the other students and families from her school (the Huffman Huskies) who were running the race. We entered the non-timed event, which started 30 minutes after the timed event. Because I was a Mended Heart runner, I got a real cool Alaska Heart Institute cap.

It was amazing watching the real fast runners go by. The winning time was 15:25.5 (mens) and 18:25.8 (women). A few of my friends ran in the timed 5K event....Mark Carr's time was 20:11.3 (finished 55th for men); Ellyn Brown's time was 21:44.0 (finished 22nd for women); and Mark Schroeder's time was around 23:00.

The winning time of the Mended Heart Division was 20:15.3. Hannah tells me that she and her friend Anna ran the 5K in about 30 minutes...WOW! They finished before I did!

After finishing his timed run, my buddy Mark Schroeder (with cheese bagel in hand) joined Marian, Hannah, the Huffman School crowd and I at the start and ran along side me for the entire race. His companionship and encouragement along the way was really appreciated. Marian was running with us as well but we lost her when she stopped to pick up a little child who fell and was in danger of being trampled.

I'm really excited about getting back into running on the road and rubbing elbows with other runners...hopefully they won't run me over as they go by. I hope to train hard and run far real soon. Nike!