In 2012, Phoenix announced a new Marathon, The Phoenix Marathon, an annual event with the first race being held on March 2, 2013, would become my first of three very different marathon experiences. I decided to run this event because March is National Kidney Cancer Awareness Month, and it was my way of raising awareness. Here's the background.

2013 Marathon:

In October 2012, one year post surgery, I decided to run the 2013 Phoenix Marathon. I trained for 5.5 months putting over 700 training miles on my body; stopped drinking adult beverages and smoking cigars; for the most part; I changed my diet which found me eating healthier than I ever imagined I would. I called it text book training. At 5'7 I weighed in at 160 lbs on race day. During the course of those 5.5 months, I dealt with nagging injuries that kept recurring, one, a strained right calf muscle, actually kept me from running all of November and most of December, so I essentially trained those 700 plus miles in three months. I continued varied workouts during those months and kept my diet up, but was limited in running. Come race day, I had a goal of 4 hours 29 minutes 30 seconds. However, I hit the wall at mile 19 and was overall miserable during the run. Asking myself many times how does all this training not pay off?! It became simply "mind" over "pain" to finish. Nonetheless I completed the distance in 5 hours 28 minutes and 16 seconds.

I created the hashtag #bks262 so supporters could follow me on social media. They showed their spirit by wearing orange and posting to that hashtag via FaceBook or Twitter! Why orange? Orange is the official color for Kidney Cancer Support. Check out the hashtag #bks262 on FaceBook and Twitter !!