First, Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone!
Oops. I meant to write this yesterday, but I after running the New Bedford Half Marathon in a PR 1:33:19, I was a little tired and slipped into a brief coma when I returned to Somerville. Probably a little faster than I should have run considering I'm still dealing with a bit of foot trouble, but it felt good to actually race after so much training and building up these last 5 or 6 months. Just 4 weeks from today until the Marathon though, and I'm starting to get pretty excited.
For one thing, I'm getting closer to my fundraising goal. As of right now, I have just over $2,000 to go, and as the marathon and the fundraising deadline approach, I'm feeling better and better about both. So thank you again to everyone who's donated, cheered me on while running, or both!
But what I'm even more excited about, at least right now, is JT. I'm sure you've heard, but his new album will be released tomorrow on iTunes. He also just announced a second part of the album will be released in the fall. On top of that, I still have tickets to the JT/Jay-Z concert August 11th at Fenway.
And you could too! Starting today, starting right now, I'm going to be selling raffle tickets for an extra pair of seats to the August 11th show. You read that right (or heard that right, in case you had a family member read this aloud to you while you stepped away to pet your dog): I have tickets to the JT show. And they could be yours, for a small donation.
Here's how it works:
-Raffle tickets will be sold for $10/each
-Tickets can be 'purchased' by making a donation to the Stork Fund on my fundraising page (note: you will not receive actual tickets)
-When donating, make sure to add your full name and how many tickets you would like to purchase with your donation (in multiples of $10). If you would like to donate more and not buy extra tickets, feel free!
-On Friday, April 12th, 2013 at Noon, I will stop selling raffle tickets, and I will use an online service shortly after to generate a raffle winner
-If you cannot donate via credit card and wish to make other arrangements to donate or purchase raffle tickets, please email me
So there you have it. I've also created a Facebook event here.
For more about the seats, raffle, or any other information you need, please feel free to email me!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Saturday, March 9, 2013
I've Got What You Want
Busy day today. 20 miles bright and early! Felt great for about 12 of them - then stopped to stretch and it all went downhill. I've had a little foot trouble recently, and stopping even for a quick 3 minute stretch turned out to be a bad idea. The last 8 were mostly a plodding jog, but I made it, and there's still much to do.
So stay tuned for more on the raffle, check back soon or check Facebook, I'll make an event for it soon!
First, Dave & Buster's. Yep, get jealous: I'll be schooling fools in Super Shot basketball in roughly an hour. Then it's off to Harvard square for more celebrations. So yea, I'm shot-gunning a coffee right about now.
Even BIGGER NEWS though:
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
GUESS WHO HAS TWO THUMBS AND SCORED AN EXTRA PAIR OF JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE TICKETS FOR AUGUST 11TH???
You nailed it, this guy:
(thumbs not pictured)
So I've decided for $10 a pop, I'm going to try to raffle them off. I'm going to have to see if anyone's even interested though, as it's come to my attention not everyone is as big of a JT fan as me. Who knew. Jay-Z is also performing.
So stay tuned for more on the raffle, check back soon or check Facebook, I'll make an event for it soon!
As always, thanks to everyone who's donated so far!
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Big Week
It's been a busy week. Busy, but great.
Since Friday I:
- Started this blog
- More than tripled the amount of money I've raised for Team Stork from $635 to, as of this moment, $2,185
- Had a fantasy baseball draft where, as usual, I killed it
- Ran a few miles, but you already knew that
Which was all great. Especially the fantasy baseball draft. I have to be honest, that took up the largest chunk of my time this weekend, I'm obsessed. I guess that happens when you win 3 titles in 4 years. Cross your fingers that Curtis Granderson won't be suspended later in the year!
And though everything has gone even better than I could have asked for this week, I'm happy to say there's plenty more to look forward to.
First, there's this guy:
He's standing in front of the flag because not only is he funny, talented as a dancer as well as a singer, handsome, and smart, but he's also incredibly patriotic. Dude loves America, and he's proving that by adding a second show to the Boston area come August. Tickets go on sale again tomorrow, and I couldn't be more excited. Oh yea, and Jay-Z will be there too.
Second, and much more importantly, more incredible news on the fundraising front. My uncle, Gregory "General Generosity" Matthei, pledged to donate $1,000 if I can make it to $4,000. He even put it on Facebook - and you know as well as I do, if it's on Facebook, it has to be true.
So essentially my goal just became $4,000 - not that I'll stop there. But for all the other extremely generous people out there, this man just made your jobs that much easier. If I can get even 100 people to donate $20, that puts me WELL over $4k. If 200 people donate, $10 each will do it. It's an additional $70/mile that I'm running. Less than $47/day from now until the marathon.
However you work out the math, it's well within reach. As I said, the response since I've started this blog has been phenomenal. Just want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone so far who has donated.
And to everyone else who plans to, thank you too! Look forward to your thank-you email, text, or phone call! More news on the JT show tomorrow!
Second, and much more importantly, more incredible news on the fundraising front. My uncle, Gregory "General Generosity" Matthei, pledged to donate $1,000 if I can make it to $4,000. He even put it on Facebook - and you know as well as I do, if it's on Facebook, it has to be true.
So essentially my goal just became $4,000 - not that I'll stop there. But for all the other extremely generous people out there, this man just made your jobs that much easier. If I can get even 100 people to donate $20, that puts me WELL over $4k. If 200 people donate, $10 each will do it. It's an additional $70/mile that I'm running. Less than $47/day from now until the marathon.
However you work out the math, it's well within reach. As I said, the response since I've started this blog has been phenomenal. Just want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone so far who has donated.
And to everyone else who plans to, thank you too! Look forward to your thank-you email, text, or phone call! More news on the JT show tomorrow!
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Great Day
Well, the run kinda sucked.
Went out for about 12.5 miles with the CharityTeams group yesterday, pretty light day considering everyone else was doing about 14-18. My legs felt great, feet felt ok, everything below the waist was doing fine. But I'm also in the middle of a nice head/chest cold, so that was fun. I yearned for red lights at major intersections so I could cough up wads of phlegm in relative peace. You know you're looking good when complete strangers stop you on the street to ask if you're ok.
But anyways, I got through it, took a 2 hour nap right after, and woke up to some awesome news: my fundraising total nearly tripled as I slept. I started the day with $635, ended with $1,735 thanks mainly to one EXTREMELY generous (and anonymous!) donor.
I'm now over 1/3 of the way to my goal within 1 day of creating this blog, and the support has already been overwhelming. As my Aunt pointed out to me yesterday, if everyone I've invited on Facebook donated $25, I would surpass my goal easily. Now that I'm over $1,000 closer, I've figured out that if everyone donated half of that, $12.50, I would STILL reach my goal, with some to spare.
Thank you so much to everyone who's donated, left messages, comments, texted, and everything! It's great to know people are listening, reading, and best of all caring. It makes the running part of things so much easier. That 12 mile run was one of my worst since I started training back in September. In hindsight though, it was easy. If I feel that bad for every run between now and the marathon, I'll take it for the great feeling of knowing other people are there watching, reading, and supporting me while I do it.
Thanks again everyone!
Went out for about 12.5 miles with the CharityTeams group yesterday, pretty light day considering everyone else was doing about 14-18. My legs felt great, feet felt ok, everything below the waist was doing fine. But I'm also in the middle of a nice head/chest cold, so that was fun. I yearned for red lights at major intersections so I could cough up wads of phlegm in relative peace. You know you're looking good when complete strangers stop you on the street to ask if you're ok.
But anyways, I got through it, took a 2 hour nap right after, and woke up to some awesome news: my fundraising total nearly tripled as I slept. I started the day with $635, ended with $1,735 thanks mainly to one EXTREMELY generous (and anonymous!) donor.
I'm now over 1/3 of the way to my goal within 1 day of creating this blog, and the support has already been overwhelming. As my Aunt pointed out to me yesterday, if everyone I've invited on Facebook donated $25, I would surpass my goal easily. Now that I'm over $1,000 closer, I've figured out that if everyone donated half of that, $12.50, I would STILL reach my goal, with some to spare.
Thank you so much to everyone who's donated, left messages, comments, texted, and everything! It's great to know people are listening, reading, and best of all caring. It makes the running part of things so much easier. That 12 mile run was one of my worst since I started training back in September. In hindsight though, it was easy. If I feel that bad for every run between now and the marathon, I'll take it for the great feeling of knowing other people are there watching, reading, and supporting me while I do it.
Thanks again everyone!
Friday, March 1, 2013
Why I Run
When people find out I’m a runner, inevitably they ask one thing: why do you run? I have to admit, I’ve never really had an answer.
I’ve always been a runner. Not in the traditional sense – I was never on a track team and I rarely ran races until I got to college at the University of Delaware, but ever since I could walk, I’ve been running. It started when I didn’t really have an interest in learning to ride a bike. My friends would ride, I would run beside them down the street to the corner store to get Big League Chew and Italian Ice. On our annual visits to my grandparents’ house in Iowa, my sister and I would go to their Walk & Talk group a few mornings a week. While they walked and talked….and talked…and talked some more, I ran. I loved it.
Then came middle and high school, and like childhood friends sometimes do, running and I drifted apart. We hung out in different crowds, went to different parties, rarely crossing paths. In college, though, I fell in love all over again. I started running in the nature preserve near the University of Delaware’s campus, to this day my favorite place in the world to go for a run. In mid-summer, running along White Clay Creek felt as remote as running alongside the Amazon. Away from class, work, phones, responsibility, everything. It’s nice to have that every once in a while these days. Even running without so much as a watch in Boston, I can rarely escape the time, temperature, or why Carla totally won’t hang out with Jenny anymore because Jenny hung out David and that’s SO not cool. To me, the best runs are out in the middle of nowhere, with miles to go, alone with your thoughts. And maybe some Daft Punk.
Since those serene, carefree days, however, I’ve moved to Somerville. My relationship with running became more complicated. Working full time, it was harder for me to stay motivated. I didn’t like running in the cold, or the wind for that matter. Turns out, Boston has lots of both. I would run for a few months at a time, getting in shape for a random 5k here and there, and stopping again when the weather shifted. I needed a purpose.
In 2012, I found it when 2 things happened: first, I turned 26. The very age itself just sounded unremarkable in every way. At 13 you become a teenager, at 18 an adult, 21 you can drink, and 25 your insurance rates drop. I wanted more out of 26. I wanted to be more involved in my community, I wanted something to work toward. I would volunteer for various events at the Red Sox Foundation, which was always great, but besides just being involved, I wanted to be passionate about the work involved too. And I’m a Yankees fan. Not that volunteering there wasn’t a blast, but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. In September of 2012, however, I got it. Exactly it. It was a company-wide email like any other, sent to tens of thousands of employees, probably deleted in seconds by most. It was an open invitation to join Team Stork, the Brigham & Women’s Boston Marathon team, to benefit the Stork Foundation. This was the perfect opportunity for me. I had always thought of the Boston Marathon as a life-long goal. Something that I would train hard for, qualify for, run for the time and my overall finishing place…but that still wasn’t enough. It was never enough just to do it for myself. When I got the email from Team Stork, however, things changed. Now I could do all the things I loved anyways: run hard, run long, work hard and get better, but I could also do it while sharing the experience with a fantastic group of people, and raising money and awareness for a great cause, The Stork Foundation.
There’s nothing quite like running for charity. I’ve never done it before, but after the very first conversation I had with our program director, Susan, I was excited. If you’ve ever spoken to her yourself, you know what I mean. The spirit to fundraise while working and training so hard is contagious. From the first team meeting, I met so many fun, motivated, outgoing, and above all generous and amazing people who, in many cases, take months out of their lives every year to raise the minimum $5,000 for their respective charities on their way to completing their 2nd, 5th, or even 25th Boston Marathon. It’s hard not to want to work hard when surrounded with that type of person. During a blizzard-filled winter, they’re out there - in the cold, rain, snow, wind - whatever, quietly accumulating miles. They’re not doing it for a PR, or the medal to show off at their desks at work, they’re doing it for everyone who can’t.
I admit, in the past I’ve always been far more concerned with my overall finish than anything else when running a race. The Boston Marathon will be so much more rewarding, though. Whether I run just under 3 hours (not likely!) or just under 4, the exact minutes and seconds I run will fade in my memory over time. Maybe since it’s my first marathon I’ll remember. But so far, the people I’ve met stand out far more in my mind than my time in any single workout or race I’ve done since I started.
I hope to pass along the infectious attitude my new friends have given me. Maybe next year, I’ll even inspire one of you to run with me! I can’t promise you it’ll be fun ALL the time, but I can promise, if nothing else, that it’s going to mean the world to someone. Someone you’ve probably never met and never will, but the money the Boston Marathon raises goes to so many great causes that it’s almost impossible not to affect someone positively. It’s a great feeling.
And I finally have an answer to the question: why do you run?
I’ve always been a runner. Not in the traditional sense – I was never on a track team and I rarely ran races until I got to college at the University of Delaware, but ever since I could walk, I’ve been running. It started when I didn’t really have an interest in learning to ride a bike. My friends would ride, I would run beside them down the street to the corner store to get Big League Chew and Italian Ice. On our annual visits to my grandparents’ house in Iowa, my sister and I would go to their Walk & Talk group a few mornings a week. While they walked and talked….and talked…and talked some more, I ran. I loved it.
Then came middle and high school, and like childhood friends sometimes do, running and I drifted apart. We hung out in different crowds, went to different parties, rarely crossing paths. In college, though, I fell in love all over again. I started running in the nature preserve near the University of Delaware’s campus, to this day my favorite place in the world to go for a run. In mid-summer, running along White Clay Creek felt as remote as running alongside the Amazon. Away from class, work, phones, responsibility, everything. It’s nice to have that every once in a while these days. Even running without so much as a watch in Boston, I can rarely escape the time, temperature, or why Carla totally won’t hang out with Jenny anymore because Jenny hung out David and that’s SO not cool. To me, the best runs are out in the middle of nowhere, with miles to go, alone with your thoughts. And maybe some Daft Punk.
Since those serene, carefree days, however, I’ve moved to Somerville. My relationship with running became more complicated. Working full time, it was harder for me to stay motivated. I didn’t like running in the cold, or the wind for that matter. Turns out, Boston has lots of both. I would run for a few months at a time, getting in shape for a random 5k here and there, and stopping again when the weather shifted. I needed a purpose.
In 2012, I found it when 2 things happened: first, I turned 26. The very age itself just sounded unremarkable in every way. At 13 you become a teenager, at 18 an adult, 21 you can drink, and 25 your insurance rates drop. I wanted more out of 26. I wanted to be more involved in my community, I wanted something to work toward. I would volunteer for various events at the Red Sox Foundation, which was always great, but besides just being involved, I wanted to be passionate about the work involved too. And I’m a Yankees fan. Not that volunteering there wasn’t a blast, but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. In September of 2012, however, I got it. Exactly it. It was a company-wide email like any other, sent to tens of thousands of employees, probably deleted in seconds by most. It was an open invitation to join Team Stork, the Brigham & Women’s Boston Marathon team, to benefit the Stork Foundation. This was the perfect opportunity for me. I had always thought of the Boston Marathon as a life-long goal. Something that I would train hard for, qualify for, run for the time and my overall finishing place…but that still wasn’t enough. It was never enough just to do it for myself. When I got the email from Team Stork, however, things changed. Now I could do all the things I loved anyways: run hard, run long, work hard and get better, but I could also do it while sharing the experience with a fantastic group of people, and raising money and awareness for a great cause, The Stork Foundation.
There’s nothing quite like running for charity. I’ve never done it before, but after the very first conversation I had with our program director, Susan, I was excited. If you’ve ever spoken to her yourself, you know what I mean. The spirit to fundraise while working and training so hard is contagious. From the first team meeting, I met so many fun, motivated, outgoing, and above all generous and amazing people who, in many cases, take months out of their lives every year to raise the minimum $5,000 for their respective charities on their way to completing their 2nd, 5th, or even 25th Boston Marathon. It’s hard not to want to work hard when surrounded with that type of person. During a blizzard-filled winter, they’re out there - in the cold, rain, snow, wind - whatever, quietly accumulating miles. They’re not doing it for a PR, or the medal to show off at their desks at work, they’re doing it for everyone who can’t.
I admit, in the past I’ve always been far more concerned with my overall finish than anything else when running a race. The Boston Marathon will be so much more rewarding, though. Whether I run just under 3 hours (not likely!) or just under 4, the exact minutes and seconds I run will fade in my memory over time. Maybe since it’s my first marathon I’ll remember. But so far, the people I’ve met stand out far more in my mind than my time in any single workout or race I’ve done since I started.
I hope to pass along the infectious attitude my new friends have given me. Maybe next year, I’ll even inspire one of you to run with me! I can’t promise you it’ll be fun ALL the time, but I can promise, if nothing else, that it’s going to mean the world to someone. Someone you’ve probably never met and never will, but the money the Boston Marathon raises goes to so many great causes that it’s almost impossible not to affect someone positively. It’s a great feeling.
And I finally have an answer to the question: why do you run?
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