13.1 Things I’ve learned through Team in Training

Mile 1 – I’ve been more than impressed by the generosity of strangers and surprisingly disappointed by some of my friends lack of support. People who I wouldn’t expect to donate/support me have taken time to look at my page and donate. Then on the other hand, I have some friends who have watched me struggle through every part of this experience, both in fundraising and running and haven’t given me a dime or even offered some of their time. It’s been shocking.

Mile 2 – Fundraising large amounts of money is not an impossible challenge. It just requires a lot of time, effort and creativity. Plan lots and lots of fundraisers and start early.

Mile 3 – People are willing to give you $5.00 without much begging and $5.00 from a lot of people adds up. One hundred people giving you $5.00 is $500!

Mile 4 – People are even more willing to help if they get something out of the deal. A chance to win a gas card, a prize from a balloon pop or even stuff from a garage sale.

Mile 5 – If people can’t give you money, maybe they can give time or gift certificate/coupons or junk for a yard sale. Everyone is looking for a chance to clean out their closet.

Mile 6 – It feels good to know you’re making a difference in someones life, even if the someone is a stranger.

Mile 7 – Getting to know members of your community and becoming an active member of the community is rewarding.

Mile 8 – Early morning long runs really aren’t that bad. You can nap when you’re done and it’s kinda neat to be up and moving before the rest of the world.

Mile 9 – Knowing that you burned over 1000 calories before 9am feels pretty darn good.

Mile 10 – Gatorade, gels and pretzels are your friend. Make sure you hydrate before, during and after your run because dehydration headaches are the pits.

Mile 11 -Body glide, wicking shirts and shorts will make the heat and humidity just a little bit more tolerable. Cotton is not your friend.

Mile 12 -Make sure you thank everyone who donates. People really appreciate the recognition, as well as updates on your progress.

Mile 13 – The first and last mile will always be the hardest. Just know that it’s all worth it once you’ve gotten past those hurdles.

Mile 13.1 – Most importantly, it’s all about the mental toughness. You can do only as much as you think your capable of, set the bar high.

balloons, burps and whoopie cushions

I thought a picture post might be a fun change of pace. H and I were hoping that this past weekend would be our final fundraising weekend. We had spent the previous week baking homemade dog biscuits in preparation for selling them at the Hyde Park Art Festival. We decked ourselves out in purple and green and set out to make thousands of dollars. Too bad we fell short of our overly optimistic goal. We were doing pretty good wandering around with baskets selling cookies as we walked. Then the crazy strict woman who was organizing the event told us we had to stay at our designated table. The spot where Charley’s Cookies was allowed to set up turned out to be out of the regular foot traffic. Needless to say, the afternoon was exceptionally hot and far less successful as we had hoped for. We still made a little more than a hundred BUT we still have a couple hundred left to raise.

Actually, $216.34 left to raise… to be exact. DONATE!

We’re gonna set up at Art Walk in Gulfport and hopefully make a little more money to help push us over the edge.

Sunday was our long run day. The longest run of 13 miles that is on our schedule. It was one of the hardest runs yet. Although for as torturous as it was, there were a lot of funny moments. Towards the beginning of the run we came across a pile of balloons. Totally random and we couldn’t figure out how they got there. E was riding her bike and as she tried to stop and inspect them, she ended up falling INTO the balloons.

Then later when we were taking our gels we were gathered around this garbage can at the start of the Odet Phillippe Park and H let out this loud burp. There happened to be a guy sitting on a bench near by and he turned around to see where the disgusting sound came from only to see my darling sister.

Finally on our way back to the car, we happened to find this little gem laying on the side of the road.

Obviously, after 11 miles of running the delirium had set in and we found the whoopie cushion beyond amusing. H took it and was sitting on it and then it reinflates itself so you can continuously make farting noises without having to blow it back up. A few minutes after our discovery, a couple of women taking their morning walk came up and H put her new whoopie cushion to the test. She sat down on it just as they walked by and then complained to E, “Uhh, my stomach doesn’t feel so good. ::more farting:: I don’t think that gel sat well with me… ::farting::.” The women were so horrified. E and I were dying with laughter.

The last 2 miles were the worst. We had to make up our route to make the full 13 miles and then the last mile I was literally counting every .10, hoping my garmin would say 13.00. By the time it was 13 miles my muscles had seized up and I slowed from a run to a walk, but knew that if I stopped moving I wouldn’t be able to start back up again. I was in so much pain for all of Sunday. But it was actually good pain. Rewarding to know that I accomplished something as important as completing the 13 miles and not giving up along the way. It’ll only get easier than this and my coach said that since this 13 miles were so tough, my race 13 will be awesome.

Anyway. I’m still running. Still fundraising. And only need $216.34 more to meet my goal. Help me get there and make my whole month!

One year anniversary and story time

Wednesday marked my one year anniversary into the corporate world. It’s kinda bittersweet. I’m no closer towards my grad school or theatre goals, but at least I’ve survived a year. The one year thing is a bit freeing. Hopefully once we’ve gotten the TNT stuff under control (after this weekend) I can focus all my attention on grad school, GRE and theatre.

* * *

So here are a couple of slightly amusing stories…

Charlie has this horrible habit of terrorizing Pixy every chance he gets. Well my mom has taken it upon herself to put Charlie into timeout whenever he starts to attack Pixy. Timeout consists of Charlie being placed underneath a laundry basket for a couple of minutes. Apparently he’s also figured out how to get out from under it, but sometimes he decides he likes it and will chill out under there for a while. So. The other night I was in my dad’s office and I hear this scratching sound. I figured it was H making a smoothie and the sound was the blender. I step out and look into the living room/foyer and I see the laundry basket. I yell out to H why she put Charlie into timeout in the living room. She says she didn’t do that… It turns out that Charlie was put into time out in the family room and then dragged himself through the family room, kitchen, dining room and foyer and was making his way towards my dad’s office. I have an exceptionally talented cat.

* * *

Then a couple of days later I was getting ready for work and my dad calls out to me to help him. He said he was having a minor emergency involving Charlie. I come downstairs and find my cat with a packing tape dispenser connected to his tail. In one of Charlie’s fits of energy he had run across the counter and his big bushy tail and gotten stuck to the tape without him realizing. Until that silly packing tape dispenser kept following him around and slowing him down. I had to cut the tape out of his tail just like a little kid.

* * *

At our Chick-fil-a night we wandered around the restaurant asking people if they wanted to donate and pop a balloon… H was walking around asking table after table when she stopped at a table of construction workers.

H – “Would you like to donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society? Pop a balloon and win a prize. You’re guaranteed to win!”

Guys – “Is there a date with a cute young girl as one of the prizes?”

H – “Uhh… no. I wanted to do a kissing booth, but my mom wouldn’t let me.”

Guys – “Oh. No thanks.”

* * *

The next night at Gulfports Art Walk, I had a our bundle of balloons and was doing the same thing, asking people as they walked by if they wanted to pop a balloon and win a prize. Well as this guy on a bike rode by and I gave my usual pitch and so he stopped. He asked if he could touch one of my balloons, so I said sure. He proceeded to touch the balloon. Then he touched another. He said that it had been so long since he’d touched one. I interjected that he should donate to the LLS. He pealed a dollar out of his wallet. Then took two balloons in his hands and fondled them. And pealed off another dollar. At this point I was slightly uncomfortable but said the only thing that came to my mind, “Well, it’s a long way to $8000 and I’ll take what I can get.” and he replied back to me, “That make’s too of us.” He fondled the balloons a bit longer and then rode away. Ya know, it’s $2.00 and if that guy wanted to get his rocks off groping my balloons, then as long as he didn’t actually touch me and just the TNT balloons, then yay for being $2.00 further towards our goal.

* * *

Those are the stories I’ve been forgetting to write. That is all.

But I am excited because Grey’s Anatomy season premiere is this week! Plus, it’s a two-hour premiere! yay! Also, Sex and the City DVD comes out on Tuesday. Yay!

Only $356.34 to go!

Seriously. I only need another $356.34 till I meet my fundraising goal. YOU should go donate now.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sun/nikesf08/kpierson

This morning I managed to run hopefully 13 miles on the treadmill. I say hopefully, because I don’t think the treadmill was callibrated properly, but I spent two and half hours on there, so I sincerely hope it worked out to 13 miles. Ugh. I hate treadmill running. It wasn’t impossible, but it was totally boring. I ended up watching three episodes of Pushing Daises and a little Cash Cab, so yay for getting to watch tv… but the experience itself was defeating, to feel like I was working but have the read out saying that I was practically crawling on the treadmill. But as much as I was working, it wasn’t really a satifying workout.

The reason I run, is so I can be outdoors. Adventuring and exploring neighborhoods and meeting/running into people… the gym really doesn’t do that for me. Today’s experience on the dreadmill proved that I can run for long distances, without people, with the sense of exploration that I get from being outside… I can run under the most boring of circumstances without anyone there to tell me to keep running. That’s an important lesson for me.

Around the Corner

Charge day is getting close and that means our fundraising is coming to an end! H and I have been working hard and have raised about $7400 since May and that leaves us with a little under $1000 remaining. NOW is the time to donate. Help put us over the edge!

We still have a couple fundraisers in the works, such as another Chickfila Night, selling Charly’s Cookies (dog biscuits) in Hyde Park and a Yoga for Runners class at North Shore. Our running has also progressed. We ran 12 miles on Saturday and will be doing 13 miles, which is just .10 shy of the full half-marathon distance on Sunday.

In less than a month we will be running the hills of San Francisco with the thousands of other runners who’ve been working just like us, to help put a stop to blood cancers. We absolutely cannot wait!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sun/nikesf08/kpierson
http://pages.teamintraining.org/sun/nikesf08/hpierson

i’m still a rockstar.

It’s been a while since I updated, but we’ve been super busy doing various TNT events and training. We’ve raised over $6000 and have just under $2000 left till we make our minimum fundraising goal. With less than a month to go, I’m concerned, but hopeful.

We did our chick-fil-a spirit night, which was rather disappointing. Not that many people came out to support it, so that totally blows. Although the balloon pop portion of the evening was a tad more successful. Then the next night I went out to gulfport for Art Walk and popped some more balloons. We raised about $330 between the two different nights.  We’ve got some plans for a couple more fundraisers, which will hopefully push us over the top in our fundraising efforts.

Training wise, H and I did our first 12 miler on Saturday. It was tough. I felt good during most of it, but the last mile was a killer. The whole experience was so rewarding though. We literally were running around all of the Old Northeast side of St. Pete, it was a definitely a fun adventure.

I have more to update on… about life and TNT stuff, but I need to get some sleep. I just thought I should update before any more days went by…

“that leukemia thing…”

I chose the title because as H and I continue to do fundraisers we end up running in the same people and have had multiple people call it “that leukemia thing”… which if I want to look at it positively, at least people are aware of what we’re doing… but I’m not sure people fully grasp or care about what we’re doing.

This weekend was enjoyable… no real plans and lots of relaxation. I went to training on Saturday morning. We only did 6 miles, so that was a nice change from the double digit mileage and I like running in Brightwaters. Then I took Charlie to get his final kitten vaccine and pretty much did nothing else for the rest of the weekend.

Today though, I did a lot of TNT stuff. H and I went around to a lot of different local businesses asking for donations and got some good responses and a couple really rude ones. I was a little shocked by the people who literally cut us off mid sentence or gave us nasty looks. Ugh. It really makes you realize how much the economy is suffering… no one has anything to spare. I think if we were doing this TNT project about 3 years earlier, it would be drastically easier for us… but what I need to remind myself is that cancer really doesn’t care what is going on with the economy. People get blood cancers regardless and I’m raising money and awareness, so that hopefully that if someone is suffering that the money I raise can alleviate some stress and pressure from their situation. That makes me feel better about things and gives me one more reason to push and do this.

Chick-Fil-A Spirit Night!

Print out this flyer and bring it to one of the locations listed above on Thursday, September 4th from 5-8pm.

We’ll also be hosting a balloon pop raffle… where a $5.00 donation will not only be supporting our efforts with Team in Training and the Leukemia and Lyphoma Society, but all you could win one of many prizes! We’ve collected gift cards, gift baskets, coupons and more… so come pop a balloon and see what you might have won!