24115

With 21 days left I have received the first tangible evidence that I will be running in this year's Boston Marathon.  I got my official number.  It is 24115 and I am part of wave three.  This means that the BAA doesn't want me to get  in the way of the people that can actually run.  I will be sharing a ride into Hopkinton with two of those people.  Jonathan Steeves is a friend of mine and he will be running in his first Boston Marathon.  He is no stranger to marathons, though, as he qualified for Boston this year with the jaw dropping time of 3:10 and that wins him a spot in wave one.  To give you some perspective on this, when he finishes the marathon this year I will still have at least another 2 HOURS to go.

The second person I am riding to the start with is the lovely Katie O'Connel who is running in her fourth Boston Marathon.  She also qualified for this years marathon and she will be heading out in wave two.  Of all of the real runners that I know Katie is always the one that makes me feel good about the training that I am doing and she makes me feel like I am doing all the right things to prepare for the race even though I really am just winging it. 

I really have no idea what I am doing when it comes to training for a marathon.  Sure I go online and look up what I should be doing or I will ask people that I know for some pointers but what I find is either information for people who are, apparently, going to be running either at a pace that only Kenyans can hit or are running their third marathon this week or, more often I find a hundred websites that all offer tips on how to train.  The problem is that if I find a website that says you should stretch before a workout invariably the next website that I find will say you shouldn't.  You see for every tip one website gives there is always another that says you should do the opposite.  I have no idea what to believe because there have been some tips that I have seen that promise dire consequences if you do one thing or another or if you don't do one thing or another.  I read somewhere that if you drink Gatorade at the begining of a race you should NOT drink water at anytime during the race because it would dilute the Gatorade and negate its benefits.  So I shouldn't drink water during a 26 mile race?  You sure about that??

I guess the point is that I could spend every waking moment of my life reading about how to train for a the marathon or I could just run.  So I think that my intensive training program will include some running and then maybe I will drink something but you can bet that it ain't gonna be water because that would just be foolish.

Til next time...

People Who Rock. The Reboot 2012

Well it is just over a month until the big race and I think it is time for the first installment of this year's "People Who Rock".  As you know my fundraising goal this year is to get $3,000 in donations for the amazing people at NF Inc. Northeast and as of right now I stand at  $755.  Now I could dwell on the fact that this is well short of my goal but instead I will heap gobs and gobs of praise to those people who have so generously given money to this cause.

• First off let's talk about my brother James Day who, as it stands right now, gets the golden sweaty sock award for the largest single donation to the cause.  I think that in and of itself elevates him to the status of someone who rocks!
• How about my old friend and neighbor Terry Rizzo.  You know that she rocks.
• Then there is and ex co-worker of mine named Deb Teague and even though her company laid me off last November she still rocks.
• My sister Jean rocks. (as if you needed me to tell you that)
• My sister Jean's friend Barbara Lubin must have spent a lot of time around Jean because her rock-ness has rubbed off
• There is my cousin Bob Ackley and his lovely wife Mandy who donated in memory of an old friend of theirs who did a news story on their amazing daughter Tori.  Bob and Mandy Rock and it is obvious their friend James and their daughter Tori also Rock!
• How about my sister-in-law Julie AND her husband (my brother-in-law) Jim.  It is obvious that they both rock.
• Then there is my other Sister-in-Law / Brother-in-Law set, Beth and Mark Vozella.  They also Rock!!
• There is a family here in my home town that rocks and it is the Battaglino family.
• Melissa Holt donated and as a result, I can safely say that she rocks.
• There is a lovely young woman named Dawn Anderson who is married to a man named Alan.  Now I don't know Alan that well but I do know that Dawn rocks so I am sure that he rocks as well.
• Now there are a couple of people that have donated that I have either never met before or donated anonymously.  Peter and Leesa Themistocles rock.  Sharon Eva Lee-Bense most definitely rocks.  And there was one donation that came without any name attached to it.  You know that a person that donates like this absolutely rocks.
• Let's talk for a moment about the Molinaro family.  Luigi (obviously a nice Irish boy) his wife Cathy and their children Julia, Annalisa and Danielle all Rock!  But it goes beyond that.  Luigi has posted my donation request on his Facebook page so many times that he got  friends of his, The Riggs Family to donate as well.  So it is a foregone conclusion that the Riggs family Rocks.
• And last but not least, I got the first (of what I hope will be many) donations from a local business.  The good folks at Roche Bros have donated and, along with being the finest purveyor of groceries, it has been discovered that they Rock.

Well that is it for this round.  I hope to have many many more posts like this.  From the bottom of my heart thanks to all of you who have donated to this cause.  I know that there is so much negativity going on in the world today but whenever I need a pick-me-up all I need to do is go to my fundraising page and see the generosity and compassion of the human soul.

Please keep the donations coming in.  There is a link to my fundraising page on the right side of this blog and while you are over there go ahead and vote on how long you think it will take me to run this year's marathon.  The votes are anonymous so feel free to be brutally honest.

Til next time...