Kick-off night!

Here we are at the kick-off party night tonight. I'll be taking my camera to capture my mentees hopefully.

I now have 8!! yay!

Nicki moved over to the Anchorage Marathon event, so she is no longer my mentee. No worries... now besides Teresa and Sheryl I have:

(3) Gabrielle... I know little to nothing about her besides the fact that we've been playing phone tag with eachother since she signed up 3 weeks ago.

(4) Tonya... also, I know nothing about her at this time.

(5) Amy... Now HERE is someone I've introduced myself to over the phone. She is running this half in honor of her brother Dave, who was diagnosed last year with hodgkins lymphoma at 54. He went through 6 chemo sessions, and as of Oct was declared cancer free! Yay! She is self-described as an extremely tall middle-aged woman, so it shouldn't be hard to spot her. She was really easy to talk to on the phone, so I think I'm going to enjoy getting to know her.

(6) Britteny... left her a message, but still haven't talked with her.

(7) Rebecca (Becky)... she seems worried I think she's crazy. The phone conversation was a tad awkward, but I think she'll warm up to me when she realizes I just want to be her friend. It'll be easier to talk to her in person I bet. She's done a half marathon before, the Run Like Hell half on Halloween. I always thought that one sounded fun. She's pretty confident she can raise all $1200 by letter-writing alone... which very well may be the case, but I think I'll watch her fundraising amounts closely just in case her friends/family/coworkers aren't as ready to give her money as she was hoping.

(8) Tami (Tamara)... yet another mentee I haven't chatted with yet.

So, in conclusion, tonight at the kick-off party I'm definitely going to have to hunt down Gabrielle, Tonya, Britteny, and Tami and ask them how they like to be contacted (phone or email).

All that aside, I've got to show up early tonight to help decorate the tables. Since I have no previous Race for the Roses shirts, medals, race bibs, or anything else relating to this particular race (Portland Marathon stuff work? no? dang) I'm going to try to hunt down a couple of bouquets of roses to scatter around the tables. Hopefully I won't be paying too much... especially since roses aren't exactly in season right now :P

See, we got this email from the walker mentors (told you they don't mingle with us.. same event but we are totally segregated) that they had discussed their table decorations and decided on the above as our decorating theme... and they didn't know what us Run mentors had decided on, but that's what they were doing. Heidi, a super-mom run mentor, responded in a group email that us run mentors had discussed it and decided to match their decorations (we have!?! I wasn't part of this discussion... by we does she mean she??). Oh well, I don't really care since I have no better ideas. Let Heidi be the roses run spokesperson... it makes it easier to be critical about her behind her back. Tis the burden of those who lead afterall!

Well, I'm off to look for roses in january!!