$5,570 raised and many lessons learned

The Year in Review

If you’ve been following my blog in 2007, you know that earlier in the year I committed to running ten half marathons during the year for every $5,000 donated (my goal being to raise $50,000 during the year). I even made a list of the ten races I would run during the year.

I’d arrived this lofty figure using some assumptions about how much people would donate ($20 on average), how many of their friends they would forward my message to, and then how many of those would donate (and so on and so on).

But soon after I started my campaign I was surprised in two ways: by my friends’ and family’s generosity (the size of donations far exceeded what I assumed) and the number of donations from their friends and family.
So I soon started to realize that I would not meet my $5,000 goal in time for the first race and I was faced with a decision: to run that first race anyway, and what to do about the other races should donations not keep up with races.

I chose to run all races anyway and let the donations try and keep up with me, and I’m glad I did, because I learned a lot about half marathons in the process and continued to be surprised by the generosity of those who knew and cared for me. I also received a few donations from complete strangers…..folks who somehow found my web site or who I met during my races. Some of those have become casual friends that I hope to get to become better friends with in 2008.

And that brings me to my plans for this year

I’ve given a lot of thought to what I’d like to do this year and I have to admit that I considered not running this year, mostly because I felt like I had to top my 10 race feat. However, I’m going to make a commitment and stick to it this year. And the commitment is this……

For every $300 donated during each calendar quarter in 2008, I will run 5 Kilometers in a race during the following quarter.

That means that if during the months of January to March of 2008 I receive $2,400 in donations, I will run a Marathon (about 40 Kilometers) sometime during the next quarter. If I receive $1,200, I will run a Half Marathon (about 20 Kilometers). Then, the next quarter, the process starts over.

So what happens if I get receive donations totaling any other amount? Portions of $300 get rounded up. So, for example, if I receive $1,400 ($1,200 + $200) that’ll guarantee your seeing me in a Half Marathon and a 5 Kilometer race during the next 3 months. I know this is a little more complicated, so I’ve created a table which you can access here for your reference.

I have to admit that I really hope I’ll see $2,600 in donations during the first 3 months of 2008 so that I can run the Boston Marathon (as a bandit, of course, my times certainly don’t qualify me) in the name of Children’s Hospital Boston. I could run on my own, of course, but I know that without your backing, it’ll be too easy to stop running when I get to Heartbreak Hill. This would be my first marathon, by the way.

One Last Comment about 2007

As I said at the beginning, I committed to run 10 races last year, and you might remember I had trouble completing one, so I’d planned to complete an 11^th one during my holiday trip to Florida. Well, I’m not ashamed to admit that instead of running it I spent the day with my kids in Disney World (the first time for some of them). However, I can tell you I’ve already signed up for the ING Miami Half in January (3 weeks or so from now), so I’ll use that as my “make-up”.

Thanks to all who supported me in 2007 and keep tuned to this blog in 2008 for more race updates and even more continuations on the topics I started in 2007!