Sundays on my training schedule are Rest and Stretch days. Although I did not really have anything to rest from yesterday (since it was the first day of training), I did do the stretching. I am thinking about getting a yoga or other stretching video from the library. I really need to work on my flexibility. Since I completed this task, I got my first frog sticker! It is a little blurry so you cannot fully tell that the little frog in the sticker looks like he is stretching. That is why I picked that one.
I went to the Team in Training kick-off today. I met with my mentor, one of my two coaches (I think she may be younger than me) and some of my new teammates. There were also quite a few people at the fund raising fair trying to get me to peddle their wares. They are sort of like the 2007 equivalent of Tupperware parties, I suppose (candles, cooking products, etc). I think those fundraising options would be more appealing to me if I had 100 girlfriends or lived in a subdivision where I knew all the neighbors or something. Given that most of those products are expensive, it would not be worth the effort to put the party together for my five friends. Even they all bought something, that would only be about $150 or so, and I only get a 10% cut.
I was a little put off when one of the people I met today (who has done several rounds with Team in Training) said that he sends e-mail requests to about 50 people, does nothing else to raise money, and then at the end just writes a check for the difference. I told him that I don’t make enough money at my job to do that. He wasn’t too helpful.
I have considered buying candy in bulk at Costco and have the husband sell it at work. I can get king-size snicker bars, for example, for about 60 cents each. Smaller candy bars are about 35 cents each, but I don’t know if his co-workers will pay a $1 for one of them when the vending machine charges 65 cents. The benefit of the king sized bars is that they don’t sell those at his work. I guess I can start with one box and see how well it goes and always get more. I have also thought about selling the fancy candy bars that people often use in fund raising. The shipping costs might make it not worth it, though. There was one woman that the fair who does this and I wouldn’t have to pay shipping, but I would have to drive all the way to her house in the Western suburbs to pick up the candy, which costs gas.
I have looked online and found some other options, but I don’t know if they would be successful either. Things like magazine subscriptions, cookie dough, etc.
Anyone have any other fund raising ideas they could share?
So although the official training plan does not start until Monday, the Team in Training season begins this Saturday with a kick-off party. This is an opportunity to meet all of the teammates, meet our sponsor patient, and learn more about fund raising. Speaking of fund raising, thanks to everyone who has donated so far and also to my brother who already convinced someone at his work to donate (oh and he also fixed this blog to make it pretty; my brother, not the co-worker).
I received a phone call from my Team in Training mentor last night. He mentioned there was another mentor for our branch, so I am not sure if I get two mentors, or if they split us up or what. The mentor is someone to ask questions about training and fund raising because they have been through the program before.
Apparently our first group training will be at a local running store, where after our first run they will talk to us about what to wear while running. (I am sure the store will try to sell us things, too. Maybe they will give us a discount?). I think I have all the right apparel, but maybe they will give me some new tips.
Since I am really just a 10 year-old trapped in the body of an almost-thirty year-old, I bought myself this frog incentive chart to help with my training. I am going to make each line in the left column represent one week of training. The spaces along the top will be for each mid-week run, the long run, cross-training, and maybe something to do with water intake and nutrition. Each time I complete a task, I will reward myself with one of the cute frog stickers, which are called “hop-to-it frogs.” What things do you do to motivate yourself to stay on an exercise or training plan?
Before I even attend my first official training session, I already feel like I have overloaded myself with information. I purchased two books, one by Jeff Galloway, and another called “The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer.” Both have a lot of similarities in training styles, but the one thing that I have not found a consensus on is how many days a week should I include in my training and how long should my longest long-run be?
The schedule that I received from Team in Training has three runs during the week and a long-run on Saturdays, with a longest long run of 20 miles. Other sources say twice during the week and one long run is sufficient and Galloway advises actually running 26 miles one day prior to the marathon. The difficulty in all of this differing information, of course, is that I don’t know what is right for me. Do I follow the TNT plan because that is what I have signed up to do? Or do I modify it based on what other experts have written? I guess this is something that I will have to figure out over time.