approaching recommitment....

So, it turns out the Race for the Roses season is super short... only 11 weeks total. Right now we have about 7 weeks left. I'll catch you up on what's happened so far!

First off, Val and Britteny ended up dropping TNT. Britteny is moving to Alaska, and Val was a little overwhelmed with the rest of her life, wasn't able to put in the time and effort into TNT that she would have liked to.

This brings me down to 9 mentees.
* Frank and Kim - an adorable married couple who are TOTally gung-ho about TNT. They seem to be having a great time with it too. Their fundraising is going really well, and they are really good about their training.

* Amy - she has turned out to be very sweet, and also quite good at fundraising. She is 3/4th to her goal as of today. She met Gabrielle on her own at one of the group runs, and the two of them have started running together. Both are really cool people actually.

* Gabrielle - younger, works nights in a bar in SW Portand (called the Bucket Brigade?). She is a first time runner, but seems to be doing really well. Also is at the half-way point for fund-raising, so she's doing really well.

* Sheryl - my alumni star. She's DONE with her fundraising, and has also been doing the experienced marathoner training, and been having no trouble at all. She makes my life easier. :)

* Teresa - she's also half-way done with her fund-raising right now, and doing slightly longer runs on the group run days since she is an experienced marathoner. things seem to be going well for her, and I think she's enjoying the social aspect of TNT above all her other marathon experiences in the past.

* Tonya - she is very sweet, but a little behind. There was a death in her family, and she had to miss a couple weeks ineffect. Now she's working to catch up in both the training and the fundraising... but things seem to be going well. She's very optimistic.

* Tami - she unfortunately works on Saturdays, but has been training on her own on Sundays, and trying to make the Thursday track sessions. I have very little contact with her, so I hope everything is going well. I really should call her this week to touch base. She doesn't seem to be very tech-savvy, as she doesn't really check email, and told me she was having trouble downloading the training schedules off of the emails Coach Joe sends out. Ineffect, she doesn't have a fund-raising webpage up, and hasn't seemed to be making any progress on her fund-raising. I'm a little worried about her truth be told.

* Rebecca - I STILL have yet to meet Rebecca in person, but it seems alright, cause I'm not sure she wants to meet me. She is doing her training, is kinda sorta slow on the fund-raising, but not so slow as to be a point of worry (she's raised around $200 right now). She seems to want me to leave her alone for the most part, so I have been. She's totally unenthusiastic about the incentives (like socks for getting your letter done and shown to our TNT staffer, or a mousepad for the website setup, or a TNT water bottle for the $300 raised by the end of this month). Also we started doing these journey bead things, and she really just didn't want one. I can't say I entirely blame her, I'm not so sure what use they are, or what exactly I should do with them... but yeah.

As far as my own training goes... I had trouble 2 weeks ago on the 4 mile run. I had to stop at 3 miles cause my old knee injury started acting up again. I was totally bummed over this. So this last weekend I wrapped my knee with the same ace bandage I used for the portland marathon season, and I seemed fine. I was able to complete the 5 mile run around NW portland (thank god!). It was such a great run this last weekend.

The weather for our group runs started out cold, wet, SNOWING, and dark. It was kinda miserable, but we were out there, bundled up, doing it. It was an interesting thing. The runs always feel good, and I can't help but notice in a group it's always easier to run distances. The last 2 weekends we got some warmer weather and SUNSHINE! It's been great!

I've decided to run the Shamrock Run on March 16 in place of our March 15 group run, so that'll be fun. I registered for the Shamrock Run 2 nights ago.

That's pretty much where things are. As far as other mentors go:
Heidi and Deanne (the soccer mom types) have mellowed out a good deal, and are actually quite nice.
Tracy is REALLY cool too, always very friendly, so that's nice.
Greg is kinda quiet, but a really good runner. He goes the extra mile (quite literally, running the course back and forth) to accompany our participants on their runs. If I was more fit I'd probably try that too, but um. I'm not as in-shape as he is.

We have only 1.5 weeks till our mentees are supposed to have $300 raised... and 2.5 weeks until recommitment. Rough!

Oh, and yesterday Lindsay had us order out race day jerseys. I've opted for a T-shirt this time inplace of the tank top I chose for the Portland Marathon (and it ended up being WAY too cold for a tank top). I figure: I already HAVE a TNT race day tank top. If I really want to wear it on race day I have it available to me. Better to have more options.

Tomorrow I'm going to a screening of The Spirit of the Marathon movie. I've invited all of TNT, but so far I don't know of anyone else going. Ah well. I'm looking forward to it, already have my ticket! Then on Saturday I'm celebrating my birthday, and I've invited all of TNT to that as well. Several of my mentees, and Captain Karl are planning on going, so that should be fun!