Street Sale Season has arrived!!

This weekend was the neighborhood street sale in my sisters community. I got TONS of denotations from people of stuff to sell and made a good contribution towards my campaign.
I always thought that garage sales were a simple, easy Sunday tradition that my Mom always had through out the summer. You woke up in the morning, put your stuff out on your driveway and people came by and gave you money for it. Easy. I don't think so! Obviously I was a kid the last time I was involved in one of these ordeals and this morning at 6:30am had no idea what I was in for. I figured that we would get up, have some breakfast, casually start putting the stuff outside and slowly the people would come on by. Wrong! By 7am, the cars were stalking the streets like vaulchers eyeing prey. When my sister called out that people had started to arrive, I looked out the window and the sidewalks were jammed with these seriously committed bargain hunters. What were all these people doing here?!?!? It's barely 7:30AM! Panicked now I rush to put out the coffee and cookies that we (and by we I mean my sister Kelly) had made. Still barely awake, I'm taping up my Team Diabetes posters, organizing the merchandise, finding the way to exhibit my boxes full of old Harlequin romance novels (trying to both display them enough for them to sell, but not so much that I am embarrassed with how many I have) all whilst haggling with these early morning thrift scavengers. Besides my surprise with how quickly it all started in the morning, everything went smoothly all day. The people were very friendly and when I told them about my cause many people were generous and supportive. By midmorning when most of the "hot items" were already long gone, luckily we kept the donations coming by introducing freshly baked cupcakes, compliments of the baking guru, my sister. I guessed it didn't hurt that I also happen to have the cutest cupcake spokesperson ever. Now if that's not the face of a satisfied customer.. I don't know what is.

Well I've still got a numbers of items left over that I'm going to keep with me for another street sale later this summer. I've still got with me a bag full of clothes, which is good since I started with two, AND because my next fundraising challenge is going to be a clothing drive. This week I am going to approach Value Village and ask them to make a donation on a per pound rate. I'm going to ask everyone I know to donate all their old clothes. Since this is the season for wardrobe rotation, winter to summer, I'm sure I'll have no problem finding contributors.

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by and showing your support. Stay tuned to find out where you can donate your clothes!!

S.

A Soggy Sunday

Well, my plan to increase my run to 15K has been postponed to later this week. Due to the rainy weather and cold temperature I wasn't able to get outside for a run, I settled for an indoor workout instead.

HOWEVER... this did leave me with sometime to think about my next fundraising effort. Next weekend, my sisters neighborhood is having a community street sale. This is the perfect opportunity expose my cause to a whole new group of people and hopefully make another substantial dent in my fundraising goal of $8,000. I've asked a few people already if they have anything they want to donate that I could sell, so far I've got a few contributors. One man's trash, another man's treasure right!

On the training side of things, last week my Team Leader with Team Diabetes Canada sent out a very special request for me. Not only has she made a connection for me at the National office of the CDA and had a copy of a book sent to me that is used for the people participating in the online training, she's also arranged a meeting for me with running coach, Sandy Gutherie, who has recently just got back from the marathon in Rome.

Hopefully I will have more training progress to report next week. Until then..

S.

Getting Started

Week 1 I got off to a great start last week with my fundraising. I sent out an email to my company announcing that I was running a marathon and asked them to support me, and I got a great response to the Diabetes wristbands that I'm selling. Thanks everyone! Don't forget that I'll have plenty more and you can come pick one up anytime.

Of course, I'm also getting started with my training. Because I'm going to be doing most of my running training with The Running Room, I went to their site and printed off some routes in my neighborhood. I'm comfortably running 10k right now, so I'm going to be increasing my "long run" to 15k for next weekend, that's a long ways from 42K, but it's a start.

Until I get the chance to sit with a Running Room trainer and put together a formal training schedule, I'm going to stick to my regular weekly exercise regime of Yoga, weight training, short (but hard/fast) runs of 30-45min 3x a week, spinning on Thursday nights, and of course, volleyball.

My fundraising strategy is coming together a bit more now. In the next week or so, I'll be sending out an email blast to "Friends and Family". I'm really counting on a lot of support there, so hopefully I'll see my campaign making it's way to meeting my first deadline of $1,400 by July 1st.

Well, that's all for now. Happy Easter everyone! Enjoy all those chocolates for me!!

S.

So I'm running a Marathon...

I'm at that point in my young adulthood were those "words of wisdom" my Mother always had are actually starting to have some relevancy, and wouldn't you know it, she actually knows what she's talking about. Of all the things my Mom has taught me, one of the most valuable things I've taken from her lectures.. Ahem... I mean, loving parental advice, is that life is made up of challenges, and it's how you deal with those challenges that shape your life. You always have the option- you can let each and every little obstacle get in your way and life can be unbearable and a constant struggle, or each challenge you conquer can make you stronger and eventually allow you to believe that with a little determination and a lot of hard work, there's nothing you can't do.

Last week, I officially registered to run a marathon in Honolulu, Hawaii. Over the next 8 months I am committing myself to some serious training for what I think is going to be the biggest challenge of my life yet. As if running 42 kilometers isn't a big enough challenge in itself, I'm also committing to fundraising a minimum of $6,200 to donate to the Team Diabetes campaign with the Canadian Diabetes Association.

I've got some great ideas to get started, this site is one of them. As monumental as this whole experience is going to be, and how much support I will be getting between friends, family, work, the community and anywhere else I can get it (!), I thought it would be a great idea to have a place to keep everyone updated on my training, fundraising progress and other happenings I encounter along the way.

I'm planning to keep posting regularly so I hope you all stop by to catch up with how I'm doing, my newest fundraising idea and how you can contribute to my cause. Thanks for stopping by...

Stay tuned.