Sport in Society's Marathon Challenge

Follow Mark Harris and Meghan Mahoney as we train for the Boston Marathon to raise both support and awareness for Sport in Society, a Northeastern University Center.

Using sports and athletes as vehicles for change, Sport in Society's programs eliminate the inequalities that disenfranchise so many in our community. SIS programs focus on fostering diversity, eradicating gender and youth violence, and promoting healthy development through sport.

Sport in Society also aims to unite and sustain the passion of the diverse athletes and activists who believe that sport is a powerful platform for promoting equity and fairness. We hope you will join in the discussion by becoming a follower of our blog (CLICK THE LINK IN THE RIGHT SIDE BAR), posting comments to let us know what issues YOU are passionate about, getting your friends involved in the dialogue, and attending our many events to meet other passionate sport and social change leaders.


Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Ooof.

Oof, this weekend's run hurt. It was a gorgeously sunny day and my mind was ready to go, but fore some reason my body wasn't on the same page. Perhaps it's because Mark was out of town and we didn't have the entire team there, but whatever it was my legs were glad to be done when I returned home after running nearly 16 miles with Suzanne.

This weekend was certainly beautiful - for the first time I was down to only ONE long sleeve layer (and probably could have been in a t-shirt). Because I had to be in Cambridge for a cooking class at Gran Gusto (go there and eat pizza!), we stuck to another city route, heading down the River Way, a stretch on the Charles, back on the bike path, and a nice loop in the arboretum. Because it's too dark to run in the Arboretum on weekdays, I always appreciate soaking up it's beauty on sunny weekend days.

By the time we got to Suzanne's house for a water stop around mile 9 my legs were ready to be done..but I don't really give my legs, or my doubts, a say in whether or not I keep going, so we did just that, we kept going.

While it hurt, and it continued to hurt yesterday when I did a 4 mile tempo run and today when I accidentally ran 10 miles at 5:30 in the morning, in the grand scheme of things I know I could push myself a lot more. And that is what marathon training is all about, pushing past imagined limits.

I'm actually finding the fundraising to be much more challenging than the running itself. While I'm confident we can do it, finding new ways to engage new supporters and get donations from contacts I tapped out long ago for Habitat International trips and the like takes a lot more brain power and creativity than just hitting the pavement. I'm so touched by the donations that have already come in and am really excited about our upcoming fundraising events (a happy hour at the Pour House, a Marathon Finish Line Party on Boylston St., and a potential Ice Cream Social-Justice and Pizza Party at Picco), but we're still making an effort to get people excited enough about Sport in Society and our campaign that they'll want to come. I'm confident we'll succeed in both running and fundraising, and I'm confident that Sport in Society's mission and work make it a worthwhile organization to which I'm asking people to donate, but neither is without its struggles.

2 comments:

  1. How does one "accidentally" run TEN MILES?!?!?!?!

    also, re: fund raising, have you charged your SIS young professionals to put on their thinking caps and get busy with designing and implementing a fund raising campaign for this event/initiative? I'll bet you have lots of folks with expertise and additional contacts beyond your immediate sphere who can quantumly expand your efforts. You could pull together a work group to get it moving...it's not about you personally...it's for the greater good and the larger agency...just a thought....

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  2. Meghan - I wanted to tell you that I was inspired on Monday. Even though your run didn't go the way you had planned, and even though we missed each other at the Community Church party afterward (I had to go at 3... just before you got there!) It was moving to see how many people showed up to support you and SiS. Thanks for inviting me, and let's go for a run some time soon from JP - I'm training for a marathon in November...

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