... make that 11 now. heh. 3 signed up at the kick-off party.
(9 & 10) Kim and Frank. I don't know much about them yet, but they are married and both seem like neat people who will do well with the TNT program.
(11) VAL!!!! Yes, my running partner for the portland marathon is now one of my mentees! Ok, perhaps that's cheating a touch, but I don't care... I'm stoked having her in my numbers.
AND, I just had to fill out my first mentore report of the season (I guess I have to submit one every monday). Seems my mentees have already raised $1050 for LLS. Pretty good for our first weekend of the season! I'm gonna have fun watching that number grow... partly cause it's a metric of my success as a mentor, and partly cause I'm not having to fund-raise myself this season.
So, let me back track and talk about the Kick-off and our first training.
Kick-Off Party!!
It was fun. I realized that roses are quite easy to come by due to Valentine's Day looming on the horizon. I got a couple bundles of "Garden Roses" which means they aren't long stem, but rather have several blossoms per stem. Still quite pretty, and frankly, cheaper.
Showed up, found rock star street (free) parking, and went and decorated tables. I helped put up posters, and then began mingling with the new participants. I found several of my mentees, snapped photos and exchanged pleasantries with Tami, Gabrielle, Sheryl, Tonya, and Amy. Teresa and Becca didn't show up to the event though.
I ate some funny-tasting finger sandwiches (I opted for the white mystery meat flavor). Then we watched the info video and all the staff, coaches, captains, and mentors were introduced. For some weird reason, my name was called first out of the mentors. This made no sense to me. Why? I've got the least amount of running experience for one thing out of the mentors, and I don't come first alphabetically in ANY sorting of the mentors... still rather confused about this. I suppose it could be innocent, but I dunno. it's weird. Went up and got my mentor training jersey. It says MENTOR across it in large letters. heh.
After the big meeting, the running peeps met in another room to talk about running. I made a bit of a fool out of myself here... by cheering for Vancouver. Coach Joe stopped and looked at me and said he's never seen ANYONE show that kind of enthusiasm for the couv before. People laughed. I stood my ground and said I was making the couv awesome again. so there.
It was a good meeting, and I walked away pretty pumped. I probably should have gone and collected my roses afterwards, but oh well. They would have just slowly died and gathered dust in my house. They were really pretty tho. Maybe I'll actually get flowers from SOMEONE ELSE for V-day though... who? who knows... but a girl can hope, eh?
First Training
Showed up with coffee in hand and with Val in the car. I tried desperately to find Becca, Teresa, Kim, and Frank before we began. Only succeeded in finding Kim & Frank. It was nice saying hi to them in person atleast. We began by learning about the weekly workout sched, learned good stretching techniques, and then met the other runners in a quick social exercise. After this, it was time to run.
Coach Joe wanted the mentors to be stationed ALONG the running course instead of running themselves... cheering on the participants. All well and good, except it was freezing and beginning to rain. Yay.
I got stationed at the bottom of a large hill on the 6mi course. Instead of standing still, I insisted on running the block back and forth. I would escort some runners to the end of the block, and then run back to the other end and look for more runners to escort. It was nice. While running with various participants I was able to chat with them a little. I think it worked well.
Then, eventually, the runners started coming back (it was an out and back course), and so I did the same thing in the other direction. How far did I go? who knows!?! I was pacing that block at various speeds for a while atleast. 45 minutes? eh. I think I ran atleast 3 miles, which works fine for me.
The rain was coming down fairly hard by the time the practice was over. A group of us ended up going out for breakfast at the cadillac cafe on East Broadway following the run, which totally hit the spot.
The group seems like a GREAT group of runners. Lots of really nice, enthusiastic people. Looking forward to the season now!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
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!!
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!!
Monday, January 7, 2008
3 mentees(!) + a new honored teammate
I now have 3 mentees:
(1) Teresa... a sweet sounding mom. She's been running since high school and makes sure to run a marathon every year (yeah, ok, WAY more experienced runner than me). Thought she'd be interested in trying something new and doing a half with TNT. She was already working on her letter and website when I called her a day after she registered. I think she's going to have no problem with TNT, and will really enjoy herself.
(2) Nicki... another mom. She is not an experienced runner, but was actually thinking about maybe doing the Anchorage marathon instead of Roses. She'll decide for sure later. She knows several people who have done TNT in the past and have been motivated by them. She's also brainstorming having a poker tournament or garage sale to help her fund raise. I like how she's thinking.
(3) Sheryl. Now, not only is she a TNT alum, but she actually ACCOMPANIED ME on the last 4 or so miles of the 2007 Portland Marathon when SHE was a mentor and I was a participant. She has registered for the Race for the Roses as a participant this time, and requested me as her mentor. coolness.
Also, today we got the email introducing us to our honored teammate: Joan Griffith.
She has a blog outlining her cancer experience at joangriffith.blogspot.com.
Her story is amazing, so I have no doubt she'll help inspire and motivate our participants for our event to work towards their fund raising goals and work to conquer their own personal challenges in training.
Other than that... I need to think of some activity I can do with my mentees in a group (we were told that the program would like us to do a social kind of thing with our own group once during the season... so I need to brainstorm on this).
Any ideas?
I'll have a group of (hopefully) 8-10 mentees by the time we're done recruiting too...
(1) Teresa... a sweet sounding mom. She's been running since high school and makes sure to run a marathon every year (yeah, ok, WAY more experienced runner than me). Thought she'd be interested in trying something new and doing a half with TNT. She was already working on her letter and website when I called her a day after she registered. I think she's going to have no problem with TNT, and will really enjoy herself.
(2) Nicki... another mom. She is not an experienced runner, but was actually thinking about maybe doing the Anchorage marathon instead of Roses. She'll decide for sure later. She knows several people who have done TNT in the past and have been motivated by them. She's also brainstorming having a poker tournament or garage sale to help her fund raise. I like how she's thinking.
(3) Sheryl. Now, not only is she a TNT alum, but she actually ACCOMPANIED ME on the last 4 or so miles of the 2007 Portland Marathon when SHE was a mentor and I was a participant. She has registered for the Race for the Roses as a participant this time, and requested me as her mentor. coolness.
Also, today we got the email introducing us to our honored teammate: Joan Griffith.
She has a blog outlining her cancer experience at joangriffith.blogspot.com.
Her story is amazing, so I have no doubt she'll help inspire and motivate our participants for our event to work towards their fund raising goals and work to conquer their own personal challenges in training.
Other than that... I need to think of some activity I can do with my mentees in a group (we were told that the program would like us to do a social kind of thing with our own group once during the season... so I need to brainstorm on this).
Any ideas?
I'll have a group of (hopefully) 8-10 mentees by the time we're done recruiting too...
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
and it still continues....
Hi all!
I thought I'd pick up where I left off... for those curious enough or bored enough to still be checking this blog. I'd still like to recall my marathon experience for posterity (even tho some of the details are admittedly a touch muddy now)... but that can wait a bit.
I've taken a small break from running since the marathon. I tried running regularly following the marathon conclusion, but the bad weather and my lackadaisical motivation made it less than happen. I went on a 7 mile run, then a 3 mile run, then 2 weeks off, then a 5.5 mile run, then a 13.1 mile walk, and since then... nothing. Oof, bad me.
BUT, it's not all over. Before Thanksgiving I applied with Team in Training to be a running mentor for their summer season, and they accepted my application in early Dec! I'll be a running mentor for the Race for the Roses run on April 6. It's a half marathon event in Portland.
And, don't be weary of me. I'm a non-fundraising mentor. I won't be sending out letters or baking more pie for now.
So... life goes on. Everything around mentoring begins this week too. TNT is recruiting right now for their summer season (which for the running team involves not only Roses, but the Rock and Roll marathon in San Diego in June or July or something. The other endurance events for the summer season include a century ride around Tahoe, and a tri out in Sunriver, OR).
We had our "mentor orientation" meeting on Dec 15, where we met the other mentors for the summer season. Apparently they are revamping the mentor program, and making the mentor's roles more involved, and also trying to make participating in TNT more fun and rewarding. So, it's kinda starting to feel like being a camp counselor all over again, but for a camp of "active adults."
Interesting.
As I was saying earlier today: it's been a long looong time since I've heard the pro and con aspects of puffy paint discussed seriously. Gah!
A couple of observations from the orientation...
(1) Race for the Roses was the biggest "event" of the summer season with 10 mentors (half walk half run), even tho we have the smallest fundraising minimum per participant and the shortest training period.
(2) the walk mentors and run mentors really didn't inter-mingle. V. segregated.
(3) of the 4 Roses run mentors present, there were two very... um... super-mom looking ladies with flawless hair and makeup, and very outgoing attitudes, and then there was Greg and me. You know, single, younger, more interested in running and the social aspect of group training than the other parts of the TNT mission. I mean, I think it's WONDERFUL to be active in an organization that works to cure cancer... but that's admittedly not my own personal drive for being there. I want to be a part of it, I'm proud I'm helping... but I don't have my own experience or personal hero. I can't write a captivating story about cancer to help motivate others.
Anyway, enough musing on how unsentimental my reasons are.
Recruiting for the summer season begins this week.
I have to attend some of these. Basically we'll be looking to tell people about TNT's mission and possibly give some personal testimony about how amazing the experience is... and maybe sign new recruits up!
After these sessions, hopefully I'll be saddled with my own gaggle of 8-12 mentees that I get to mold in my own image... or rather communicate regularly with and encourage and monitor their progress. I'm supposed to do some fun team-building stuff to help make them feel special and "looked after" as it were, so I'm still brainstorming on the subject.
... I suppose pet rocks are a bad idea.
But, that's the news from this neck of the woods! Hope everyone had a great holiday season!!
I thought I'd pick up where I left off... for those curious enough or bored enough to still be checking this blog. I'd still like to recall my marathon experience for posterity (even tho some of the details are admittedly a touch muddy now)... but that can wait a bit.
I've taken a small break from running since the marathon. I tried running regularly following the marathon conclusion, but the bad weather and my lackadaisical motivation made it less than happen. I went on a 7 mile run, then a 3 mile run, then 2 weeks off, then a 5.5 mile run, then a 13.1 mile walk, and since then... nothing. Oof, bad me.
BUT, it's not all over. Before Thanksgiving I applied with Team in Training to be a running mentor for their summer season, and they accepted my application in early Dec! I'll be a running mentor for the Race for the Roses run on April 6. It's a half marathon event in Portland.
And, don't be weary of me. I'm a non-fundraising mentor. I won't be sending out letters or baking more pie for now.
So... life goes on. Everything around mentoring begins this week too. TNT is recruiting right now for their summer season (which for the running team involves not only Roses, but the Rock and Roll marathon in San Diego in June or July or something. The other endurance events for the summer season include a century ride around Tahoe, and a tri out in Sunriver, OR).
We had our "mentor orientation" meeting on Dec 15, where we met the other mentors for the summer season. Apparently they are revamping the mentor program, and making the mentor's roles more involved, and also trying to make participating in TNT more fun and rewarding. So, it's kinda starting to feel like being a camp counselor all over again, but for a camp of "active adults."
Interesting.
As I was saying earlier today: it's been a long looong time since I've heard the pro and con aspects of puffy paint discussed seriously. Gah!
A couple of observations from the orientation...
(1) Race for the Roses was the biggest "event" of the summer season with 10 mentors (half walk half run), even tho we have the smallest fundraising minimum per participant and the shortest training period.
(2) the walk mentors and run mentors really didn't inter-mingle. V. segregated.
(3) of the 4 Roses run mentors present, there were two very... um... super-mom looking ladies with flawless hair and makeup, and very outgoing attitudes, and then there was Greg and me. You know, single, younger, more interested in running and the social aspect of group training than the other parts of the TNT mission. I mean, I think it's WONDERFUL to be active in an organization that works to cure cancer... but that's admittedly not my own personal drive for being there. I want to be a part of it, I'm proud I'm helping... but I don't have my own experience or personal hero. I can't write a captivating story about cancer to help motivate others.
Anyway, enough musing on how unsentimental my reasons are.
Recruiting for the summer season begins this week.
January 3, 2008 - 6:30PM Summer Season Informational Meeting Northwest Natural Headquarters One Pacific Square - 4th floor 220 NW 2nd Ave | |
| January 5, 2008 - Noon Summer Season Informational Meeting Lucky Lab Beer Hall 1945 NW Quimby St. | |
| January 8, 2008 - 6:30PM Summer Season Informational Meeting REI 1405 NW Johnson St. | |
| January 9, 2008 - 6:30PM Summer Season Informational Meeting Lucky Labrador Brew Pub 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd. | |
January 12, 2008 - Noon Summer Season Informational Meeting Lucky Lab Beer Hall 1945 NW Quimby St. | |
I have to attend some of these. Basically we'll be looking to tell people about TNT's mission and possibly give some personal testimony about how amazing the experience is... and maybe sign new recruits up!
After these sessions, hopefully I'll be saddled with my own gaggle of 8-12 mentees that I get to mold in my own image... or rather communicate regularly with and encourage and monitor their progress. I'm supposed to do some fun team-building stuff to help make them feel special and "looked after" as it were, so I'm still brainstorming on the subject.
... I suppose pet rocks are a bad idea.
But, that's the news from this neck of the woods! Hope everyone had a great holiday season!!
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