My name is... TEAM!

"Hello. My name is Ryan. I am a cancer survivor. Well, I think... Hm. I am a cancer... mitigator? Delayer of cancer? I am a cancer ...temporary reprieve-er."

When the doctor told me of my remission, his actual words were that test results "show no sign of the disease." What does that mean?! I still have to go in for treatment. It's a very light dose once every two months. It's still no treat. This process has shown to significantly delay the eventual return of cancer. Yes, eventual. It will return. So am I a survivor?

As a matter of semantics, I do not think I qualify. How about, "Hello. My name is Ryan. I am a survivor of multiple rounds of chemo therapy and am in temporary reprieve from, be that however long, the eventual return of cancer."

That just sounds so lame. I am a survivor of two half marathons while going through three rounds of chemo. I am member of Team In Training.

"Hello. My name is Ryan. ...I'm a freakin' Superhero!"

You are members of an elite TEAM. We are the champions of fundraising. Of sweat. Of aches and pains and chaffing in places we dare not name. We are the ones hosting parties to auction off our friends but not in a Sin City sort of way. We bake chocolate chip zucchini muffins and offer them up to anyone within our friend's friend's Facebook circles hoping they trust us to not put arsenic in the special ingredients. Or trusting to not put any "special ingredients" in to begin with.

We crawl out of bed, sometimes falling more than anything, to step into running shoes and clothes that might still stink of the previous run but have dried so we put them back on because we hate doing laundry more than we deem necessary. So yes, sometimes our odor doth offend.

I am okay with that. Just don't expect any post race spooning from me, Mike Hilliard.

We gather. We cheer. We run. We stop and talk for WAY too long while getting water. We run some more. We cheer each other on when we see each other going the other way. We might be a little lost. We wish our legs and lungs would just freaking do what our coaches and captains are telling us to do. And could they please do it with less burning? We finish sweaty. We devour gummy bears at alarming rates. We rub sticks on our sweaty parts then offer the stick to the next in line. We take that stick and perform the same ritual.

We take really stupid pictures of each other. 4 or 500 of them. We post them on Facebook so our non-runner non-cancer friends can be annoyed that their lazy bits are still looking at Facebook instead of doing something.

We annoy everyone we meet to raise just one more dollar to fight cancer. We do that while wearing purple. We cheer some more. We are a part of Team In Training.

We are all, Superheros.