Kick-off

This morning I went to the Team in Training Kick-off at a hotel in Rosslyn. They had breakfast waiting for us in a room with wall-to-wall windows over looking Georgetown and the Potomac- so beautiful!

During breakfast and the speeches, I was able to sit with my teammates. There are four of us in total: Keri, a bubbly accountant who just started running about a year ago; Andrea, a friendly former teacher who has three children under the age of five (yikes); Tara, who looks like she's probably a few years younger than me, and also seems nervous about both running and fund-raising, and a fourth woman who was sitting at another table but joined us briefly at the end (I'm not sure what her name was, but I'm sure I'll find out more about her as we start training together). Our team captain is Erin, who also happens to be my neighbor!

Throughout the breakfast, the room was full of energy as staff members, volunteers, and coaches got up to share information about different components of the program. Colin, who won this year's "Man of the Year" award for raising more than $100,000 for the cause, also got up and told his story. He was diagnosed with a form of Leukemia ten years ago, and shared his experiences with cancer and Team in Training with a light-hearted sense of humor (although he still managed to make me tear up). He recently completed an iron-man competition...whew.

While the speeches were going on, two volunteers were walking around selling raffle tickets for two dollars a piece or 20 bucks for an arm's length (Although it looked like way longer than the typical arm. The volunteer joked that Michael Phelps measured them out for her before leaving for the Olympics). I bought two tickets, and several winners were chosen at the end of the event. The first three winners were given gift certificates to local biking and running stores, and the fourth person won a Team in Training duffle bag with a bunch of cool stuff inside.

The final two winners split the money that was collected in the raffle, which will be posted to their fundraising pages. They each got about $438! I definitely wouldn't have minded that addition to my fundraising total! I can't complain though - thanks to the generosity of family, friends, and several kind-hearted souls that I keep up in touch with via Facebook, I have raised $300 after just three days of fundraising! I still have a ways to go, but I definitely have faith in myself that I am going to reach my goal by the end of the next five months.

Our first group run is this coming Saturday at 7:00am. As far as the ungodly hour goes, at least our runs will be over with early so we can get on with our day. In addition, once it starts getting colder, we'll switch to 8:00am runs. Erin said she'd either call us or email us this week to talk about the first run and possible buddy runs. Thus it begins.

I have one final announcement, regarding my run today: After about 20 minutes of trail running, I came back to Beauregard Street and was able to run up the hill without even thinking about it!!!