Cancer doesn't stop

On Saturday, the normal day of our long runs that we run together with our team, the cold weather persisted and snow still covered the ground. On Friday night I asked Ryan if we were going to do the team run that next morning and he answered me, as I knew he would, that he would be running the next morning but I could sleep in if I wanted. Just so you know, that trick works on me 100% of the time. Only had he said he wasn't going to run would I have stayed in bed too. When we got up to base right at 7:30 we saw our coach and one of the mentors standing by their cars, still running, waiting to see if anyone was going to show up. To be honest, I was thinking, dang, we are going to be the only ones here and I'd really rather not run 12 miles all by myself.

We visited with Manuel, our coach and the TNT mentor for a few minutes when Manuel asked me how my hands had been doing in the cold. Ever since the dehydration run my hands have had a hard time warming up during the cold day runs. I informed him that my $1 gloves weren't cutting it (surprise, surprise). He walked to his car and pulled out a pair of gloves and said, "try these. I picked them up at a bike store half off and thought maybe they would work better for you." In that instant I was reminded of another reason why I love training with TNT so much. They take care of you. They care about you. And they care about what they're doing.

With my new gloves warming up my already-cold hands, a walk-runner showed up (she's from the North, and she's tough), and one of the other TNT coaches showed up. Manuel informed us that Albert would run with us and I felt relieved that I wouldn't be running alone for two hours.

Every Saturday before we run one of the mentors, the team captain or one of the coaches shares a story to inspire us either about one of our Honored Heroes or about training or about the cause we support. Manuel told us something he had thought of that morning, that you can't choose your race-day weather, so don't choose your training-day weather. While this helped a little to make me ready for the run we were about to start, Albert shared something that tied what we're doing back to the reason why we train. He had been talking to his cousins that morning asking them if they were going to run, and they laughed thinking he couldn't be serious when he told them, "cancer doesn't stop because it's cold." That was enough. I was sufficiently inspired to trek through the snow and complete our long run.

(I was cold at the start, cold in the middle, and cold at the end, but my hands stayed warm pretty much the whole time. :)

Three cups of tea

Right now Ryan and I are reading the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, and it's made me think a lot about what it is to raise money for a cause you support. In the book, based on the experiences Greg Mortenson had raising money for schools in Pakistan, he believed so wholeheartedly in what he was doing that he was determined to raise $12,000, enough money to build one school in a small village, Korphe. He did everything he could think of to raise the money, including writing 580 letters, many of which he typed on a typewriter. He only got one response from his letter campaign, Tom Brokaw, and that was it; hardly enough money to build his school.

Eventually he got in touch with one man, Jean Hoerni, who gave him all the money he needed to build the school. When he got back to Korphe with all the materials for the school the village elders told him what they really needed was a bridge (as it would have been difficult to carry the materials across the Braldu river with a hanging basket on a cable). Mortenson then realized he would have to fundraise again. He was feeling pretty down when he was encouraged by a fellow climber to ask Hoerni again for money, as he definitely had enough to give.

What I've realized from this book (what we've read so far) is that my efforts to fundraise have been pretty puny, and last week as I was beginning to think 'how in the world will we raise enough to meet our goal of $1800 each?' I realized that I really haven't done much yet to fundraise. So, while I'm not going to type 580 letters on a typewriter (I would have to buy a typewriter), I'm going to get creative with ways I can fundraise. So... if any of you who read this blog have ideas/creative ways to fundraise, please share them here! and I'll give them a shot.

Oh and also, if any of you wants to be the Jean Hoerni of my story, go right ahead!