Why I Love My Brain

Back in the Fall of last year Girls on the Run San Diego asked me to be the guest speaker at the women's film festival Lunafest. I spoke for the first time publicly about finding out that I have cancer, going through treatment, running, and why I love Girls on the Run. A teacher from one of the schools where we hold Girls on the Run reached out to me after the event and said that she really enjoyed hearing me talk and asked if I would be able to come and talk to the school for an event they were having called "Love Your Brain". Me?? Uh ..... sure! The event wasn't until April which was six months away and I almost forgot about it until a month or so ago when we touched base to go over details.

 

Packed Auditorium at Skyline Elementary



 

I found out that I would have about 30 minutes to speak to the 6th graders about my story which would tie into their week long event themed "Love Your Brain". In preparation for my visit the school showed the students my Katie Couric interview. I was nervous preparing for this talk since I wasn't sure what I should share that would be appropriate and interesting to kids that age. I wanted to be honest about my disease but didn't want to scare them too much, and wanted to somehow come across as a good role model.

Gift from the School

 

 

As I was putting together my photo presentation I decided to start out by talking about me, things I like, where I grew up, where I went to school, what I studied, and where I worked. This was a perfect opportunity for me to plug engineering of course, and I talked about how I majored in Mechanical Engineering and told the kids about the cool jobs I was hoping to get (working at Disneyland as an Imagineer or working at Mattel designing Barbie Jeeps) and what cool jobs I actually ended up getting (working at a robotics company and working at a video game company). It may seem silly, but I feel a need to do my part when I can to encourage kids to think about engineering as something fun and cool ... and of course something that a girl can do!

Engineering Class Trip to Chevron

 

 

I also included pictures that allowed me to talk about running, dressing up, and Girls on the Run. I also explained how I was diagnosed with brain cancer, what type of treatment I went through, and how I kept running through it all.

 

To tie in with the theme I ended with the reasons I love my brain. I love my brain because it allows me to be:
 

 

CARING

 

 

INTELLIGENT

 

 

CREATIVE

 

 

CONFIDENT

 

 

MOTIVATED

 

 

BRAVE

 

 

SUPPORTIVE

 

 

OPTIMISTIC

 

 

 

Yes, I did throw some things in there to be crowd pleasers like the pictures of the dogs for my "caring" example. If you want you can watch the whole photo presentation here. It's a bit long, grab some popcorn!

 

 

 

 

After I finished my presentation they asked me to take questions. I never would have imagined that the kids would have so many questions for me. Boy was I wrong! The whole room was filled with hands in the air! I answered question after question for about 15 minutes until we finally had to cut the kids off. The questions ranged from "Do you play any musical instruments" to "What do you do for your job now?" to "Have you ever done an Ironman?" to the last question which was the hardest question to answer ... "What would you do if you were told you only have one year to live?" Geez kids, getting heavy here! I was able to answer all of their questions and really had a fun time doing so. If you haven't finished your popcorn and want to kick back and watch another 15 minute video, here is the segment with all of the kids questions.

 

 

The whole experience was really great and I loved having a chance to spend the afternoon with these kids. I hope they all love their brains a little bit more now!

 

 

My Katie Couric Interview

It has been a week now since I was on the Katie Couric show. I can't believe I even get to type that! I was on the Katie show!! A producer contacted me a couple days after the Tutugate story broke and asked if I could come out to New York the following week to appear on the show. Initially I didn't think I could do it since I had an important meeting set up for that Tuesday with a customer, but the meeting didn't end up working out and fortunately I have a very gracious boss and he let me take Monday and Tuesday off with short notice to fly out to New York! Best part of the trip was that the show flew David out with me too!

 

Soon after I confirmed for the show I saw this video that Katie posted on twitter. I have to say this is the coolest video I have ever seen!!! Check it out for the fun surprise cameo! View the video here.

 

 

Katie Tweet That Made My Day

 

 

I was already thinking about making Katie a tutu and after watching this video I decided to make her one as well as Lynda Carter. I had asked the producer what Katie's favorite color was and she told me to make the tutu any color, something bright, and whatever color I chose Katie would like. Well, I couldn't just make her any color tutu! I started googling pictures of her to see if I could see a color trend in her clothes. Not that something like that would necessarily reveal her favorite color. My favorite colors are purple and green but I never wear those colors. After seeing a lot of red, blue, and black dresses I was still stumped. None of those colors seemed right. I then decided to look up Katie on Wikipedia and that's where I found my inspiration. I read about how Katie lost her husband years ago to colon cancer, that she lost her sister a few years ago to pancreatic cancer, and that she lost her father most recently to Parkinson's disease. I looked up the awareness ribbons for each of these diseases and came up with the perfect tutu. Blue for colon cancer, purple for pancreatic cancer, and grey for Parkinson's ... and brain cancer (for me!). Lynda's tutu was a bit easier, I made her an all blue tutu like my Wonder Woman tutu, minus the sloppily glued on foam stars.

 

 

The "Katie" Tutu

 

 

David and I flew out Monday afternoon and got into New York pretty late. We went straight to bed and the next morning I was up early to go for my first run in Central Park.

 

 

Airplane Selfies - David's Digging It

 

 

I've been to New York about a dozen times but have somehow never ventured outside for a run. I met up with my friend Peter (fellow former San Francisco Marathon Ambassador) that next morning and we did a nice 4 1/2 mile loop inside the park.

 

 

My First Central Park Run - LOVED It

 

 

The Katie Show sent a car to get us at 12:15pm for the 2:30pm taping (we had car service everywhere!) and a few minutes later we were at the ABC studios. We hung out in the green room for a bit with a handful of other people before I was brought up to hair and makeup.

 

 

Hanging Out In The Green Room

 

 

Cheese Platter In The Green Room - Ewe!

 

 

After hair and makeup we went back to the green room and I went over the segment with the producer. I was really worried about being asked questions I wasn't prepared to answer and sounding like an idiot on national TV. Fortunately the producer role-played 10 questions with me, gave me feedback on some of my answers (elaborate more about that point, include details about this point, feel free to show more emotion when you talk) and told me that Katie would probably ask me 8 of the 10 questions we went over. Whew! No surprises!

 

 

Almost Time For My Interview

 

 

Before I knew it my time to go on had come. We were watching the show from the green room and when my segment got closer they brought me upstairs to go backstage. David had the option to sit in the audience or stay backstage, so I asked him to stay backstage so I could see him immediately before and after I went on. After a few mic checks and several minutes of sweaty palms and my heart beating out of my chest, I received the queue to walk on stage. Don't trip! Don't trip! Don't trip! And .. OMG it's Katie Couric! We're shaking hands! We're hugging!! I just hugged Katie Couric!

 

 

Just Me & My Buddy Katie Chatting

 

 

The whole interview was surreal. Although I was extremely nervous the whole time I was on camera I felt that my interview went well, and that I was able to adequately answer all of the questions. The tutu that I had made Katie was placed behind my chair and we were supposed to pull it out at the end. As soon as we cut to the commercial break after the interview ended Katie said "Oh no! I forgot the tutu!"

 

 

Tutu Photos With Katie

 

 

During the break someone brought out the tutu I had made Lynda Carter which I put on and Katie put on the one that I had made her. I later saw that she (or most likely her social media manager) tweeted out the picture and she also replied to my tweet about meeting her that day.

 

 

Rockin' The Tutus With Katie

 

 

Overall the whole experience was amazing. Never in a million years would I have thought that I'd meet Katie Couric. Never in a million years would I have thought that the innocent request for a photo of Tara and I would result in tutugate. It's been two weeks now since the media storm started and the whole experience has been one crazy ride. We've helped raise almost $7000 for Girls on the Run and the fundraising and sponsorships haven't yet ended. I'm pretty sure everyone now agrees ... #tutusrock.

You can view our whole interview here.
 

 

 

 

 

#tutugate to #tutusrock

Assuming you have the Internet and haven't been out of the country for the past week, I'm pretty sure you've heard about Tutugate ... aka when Self Magazine called a cancer survivor marathon runner lame. Well that lame runner is me!

 

 

Back in February Tara and I got a request through our Glam Runner website from a Self photo editor for a high res photo for a "write-up on running tutus". We were immediately excited and happily sent along a photo of us at the LA Marathon back in March 2013. This was a special race for us and a monumental day, and we were thrilled over the prospect of being featured in the magazine. (More on my blog LA Marathon: Powered by Chemo.)

 

 

LA Marathon - March 2013

 

 

Fast forward a couple months and I had totally forgotten we had even sent in the photo ... until a friend of mine texted me the picture. (Just the picture alone, not the caption around it.) I immediately got excited and ran out to get copies for friends and family. I scoured a couple drug stores and was unable to find it, but David was able to pull up the digital issue on Next Issue. Insert jaws dropping onto the floor. They used us in the "BS Meter" column where they rank things from Legit to Lame. We were sadly on the lame side. I couldn't believe it and went back to make sure I didn't misinterpret the email. I hadn't. The request didn't say how the photos would be used. Should we have asked? I then texted the picture to Tara and posted it on my personal Facebook page. After being validated by the outrage of my friends, I then posted it on our Glam Runner Facebook page. The story blew up from there.

 

 

Self Magazine BS Meter

 

 

I was contacted the next day by a reporter from NBC 7 in San Diego who wanted to do a story on this incident. I asked David "Is this really news? Should I say yes?" I decided to say yes but didn't think the story would go far. I was wrong. The story first aired last Wednesday night at 4pm. By 7am the next morning it had almost a million views on the website! Are you kidding me?

 

NBC 7 Interview - The Beginning of the Storm

(View the interview here)

 

That next day CBS contacted me and wanted to do a feature for the CBS Morning News. Really? I couldn't believe how many people were interested in the story!

CBS Morning News Feature

(View the interview here)

 

 

I saw on twitter that the story was spreading like wildfire among runners, and then among other people as well. People were outraged that we were being made fun of, and started posting disparaging tweets directed at Self Magazine and the Editor in Chief, many proclaiming that they were cancelling their subscription and never buying Self again.
 

Front Page of Yahoo!

 

Over the next few days the storm continued. The story was getting picked up everywhere and friends started sending me links from various websites running the story. I was shocked when I saw the story make it to USA Today (article), Huffington Post (article), HLNtv (article), Yahoo (article), Perez Hilton (article), and many others. It was even the top trending story on Facebook. Was this real life?

Trending on Facebook

 

 

The Editor-in-Chief of Self quickly tweeted an apology to us, posted one on facebook, but the Self bashing continued. I was really surprised by how much outrage there was over the story, and I hate to think that it was ONLY because I have cancer. I guess even worse than just having cancer, I have cancer and we also make tutus to donate a portion to charity. How dare they make fun of a cancer patient? Well hey, what about the non cancer patient? My friend Tara was right by my side in the picture and is my 50/50 partner in Glam Runner and I'd say only 20%  of the posts I saw got past the part where I have cancer and started questioning why a magazine was running a snarky piece like that at all, especially in a magazine that was supposed to empower women. Shouldn't we as women be here to lift each other up? Shouldn't we support each other to be individuals and to be confident in who we are?

Love This Meme

 

 

Throughout the whole media storm I was actually never 'mad' at Self. If anything I was hurt. I felt betrayed and misled, and was kind of embarrassed to be called lame. The Self Editor-in-Chief reached out to me and wanted to apologize amidst all of the frenzy, and on Friday I finally had time to give her a call and ended up talking to her for almost an hour. She apologized a million times, told me that the piece doesn't embody what Self is all about, told me that they're getting rid of the whole BS meter feature, and defended the magazine as being a huge supporter of cancer survivors and Girls on the Run, two types of charities that our tutus have raised money for. I accepted the apology and did a phone interview which was posted on their blog later that day, but the social media hate monsoon continued.

Self Blog Interview

(Full article here)

 

 

On Friday I was also contacted by the Today Show and the Katie Couric show. OMG!! I confirmed with the Katie show first and promised them that I wouldn't do any other national interview before their show aired. That means I turned down the Today Show, and later turned down Inside Edition. Was this really happening? I couldn't believe it.

Interview with CBS at the #tutusrock Beach Run

 

 

Before this whole Tutugate debacle started we had a little over 1000 Glam Runner facebook fans. That's from three years of being in business! Over the course of four days we skyrocketed up to 36,000 fans. Really. With that came a flood of orders. We had to take down the ordering page and instead put up a donation page for Girls on the Run San Diego. Within a few days we had raised $4500 for them. It has been amazing! Tara and I make tutus at home after work or on the weekends. Since we try to have lives outside of work and making tutus, we usually only make a few a week, and that is about the demand that we have. We suddenly had a month's worth of orders in a few hours. Insane!

Tutu'd Runners at the #tutusrock Beach Run

 

 

This whole mess has really resulted in a number of positive things though and while I kind of wish it hadn't happened in the first place, I think nothing but good has come from it. It started a conversation across the country about bullying and judging others for what they are wearing. It has raised a lot of awareness about Girls on the Run, the organization that we are Board Members for, former coaches for, and that we help raise money for. And it has shown us how much our friends and family love us, but also how much love and support strangers can provide as well.

Glam Sisters for Life

 

 

It has been exactly three years since Tara and I started Glam Runner, and I'm so glad we did. We've had a lot of fun, we've made a lot of people smile, and we've been able to do a lot of good with something as simple as a few yards of tulle and an elastic waistband.

(Click here to donate to Girls on the Run San Diego.)
 

 

Courage Through Cancer

I was recently featured in a bi-monthly column in the San Diego Union Tribune newspaper called Courage Through Cancer. I'm glad I had a chance to share my story because I feel that the awareness of incurable cancers is low, even among the medical community. Each time I see a new doctor and we are going over my medical history and they see that I have cancer and we start to talk about it, they are baffled by the fact that I went through treatment, am not cured, and am currently not on any treatment to fight this disease. My tumor has been stable for the past four months since I've been off chemo which is great. Stable but still present. In the mean time I am still living life. Working, spending time with friends and family, and running regularly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can read the full article here:
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/mar/17/allen-brain-tumor-marathoner/

 

 

 

 

 

Napa Valley Marathon - #21

It has been over two weeks now since I ran the Napa Valley Marathon ... Marathon #21! I'm happy to have crossed yet another marathon off my list and had fun coming home to the Bay Area for the weekend for the race. For years I heard people rave about this race having a beautiful course and having a nice negative elevation which was ideal for PRs, and since hearing that I have wanted to run it. Several months ago I talked Tara into running this race and we had plans of shooting for a 4:20 PR for her, and a big cancer PR for me. (My previous races on chemo were 5:30 and 5:00.) Our training didn't go exactly as planned in the months leading up to the race though so in the end I was really just hoping for a sub 5:00 finish to at least prove to myself that I was making improvements and recovering from the chemo which I finished back in December.

 

 

Napa Valley Marathon Course

 

 

The race has a strict no-headphones policy which they threatened all of the runners about repeatedly leading up to the race, including a grumpy sign at the expo. I know there are runners who don't need music and who prefer to run without it. I'm not one of them. I find running in silence to be torture. I stressed about what to do about the headphones for weeks. Buy wireless headphones? Run in misery without headphones? Run with headphones and risk disqualification?)In the end I decided ... well ... let's just say that I have a friend who kept her headphones in her shirt and would take one ear out to listen to when it was "safe".. and then tuck it back into her shirt when it wasn't. I hear it worked out well for her. :o)

 

 

BOO on No Headphones!

 

 

David and I flew up to San Francisco Friday night and had dinner with my Dad, and then had breakfast the next morning with my best friend and her family. We also had a chance to see her beautiful new optometry practice downtown called Lunettes Optometric. Check it out if you need to have your eyes examined or need new glasses!

 

 

Lunettes Optometric

 

 

Lunch at Cornerstone Sonoma

 

 

We drove up to Napa after breakfast to go to the expo and to get my race bib. We stopped at Cornerstone in Sonoma along the way and I couldn't resist taking a picture on the giant purple Adirondack chair. I have a normal sized purple one at home.
 

 

Napa Valley Marathon Duffel Bag

 

 

We all stayed in Yountville that night at my friend Tom's house and had a nice carbo loading dinner at R+D Kitchen. Such torture to be in wine country and to have a nice dinner and not be able to enjoy some wine ... but I didn't want to break my rule of no alcohol the night before a race.

 

 

Dinner at R+D Kitchen

 

 

In addition to stressing about the earphones for weeks I was also worried about the weather. A big storm was coming through California and the weather reports were showing rain on race weekend. Luckily most of the rain hit on Thursday and Friday and by Saturday things started drying out. On race day we managed to stay dry until the last hour or so and were only hit with a light drizzle. (Which running through still leaves you soaked, but at least it wasn't pouring.)

 

 

San Diego Storm Watch

 

 

The course was a point to point and wasn't great for spectators, but we did get to see  David and crew around mile 18. I felt bad that they had to stand around in the rain, but I guess it could be worse. They could be running 26 miles in the rain! Ha.

 

 

Race Morning Mustaches

 

 

10 Miles Down, 16 To Go

 

 

20 Miles Down, 6 To Go!

 

 

Running In Rain - Ewwwww

 

 

We ended up finishing the race in 4:46:51, a time that both Tara and I were happy with. This was still much slower than any marathon I ran before being diagnosed with cancer, but hey, I'm making progress from my races last year when I was on chemo, and my doctor said that it could take 3-6 months for me to be fully recovered from its effects.

 

 

Napa Valley Marathon Finishers 

With Our Race Support Crew

Finisher's Medal - It's a Spinner!

 

  

We flew back to San Diego that night and then I actually took the entire week off of running! I probably could have run again by Wednesday but decided to give my body a rest until Saturday when a group of us got together to celebrate our friend Allison's recent wedding with a "mustache and wig" run. Why? Why not! (Okay, the real reason is that Allison loves mustaches and wigs. I mean, who doesn't??)

 

 

Allison's Mustache & Wig Run

 

We only ran 3 miles that morning and for the last mile and a half I was running between a 8-8:30 pace and felt great. I was recovered! Well, not really.  The next day I ran the San Diego Half Marathon for a friend who couldn't run because she was injured. I decided to start out with the 1:50 pacer running sub 9:00 miles. I felt good for all of two miles before I started to hurt, then get really tired, then wanted to quit. I considered calling David at one point to come pick me up but figured I'd just slow down, take walk breaks whenever I needed them, and just treat the race as a recovery run.

 

 

My Thoughts on the San Diego Half Marathon 

 

 

Finished - But It Was Painful

 

I finished in 2:12 ... and I started with the 1:50 pacers! I must have been crazy. Oh well, live and learn! I'm done with running races for a while and will be switching gears to triathlons. Next up is the Spring Sprint Triathlon May 4th!