PhillyDude's LiveSTRONG Challenge

[phillydude]

On September 10th (the day after my 42nd birthday) I will be participating in the LIVESTRONG Challenge here in Philadelphia, one of only five cities in the United States chosen to host this first-time event. And while I would love to ride my bicycle this year, with my current marathon training schedule, I've decided that it will be best if I instead race in the 10K running event. So I'm registered and will be ready to go on race day... now all I need is your support.

I've set up an easy way to contribute online at this link: PhillyDude's LIVESTRONG 10K Challenge. Any amount you can donate would be appreciated, and the money goes directly to the Lance Armstrong Foundation and its valuable work in the fight against cancer.

If you do make a donation, please include your "screenname" along with your real name so that I can know who to thank when all is said and done. I've done these types of events in the past, and one of the most frustrating things was receiving a donation from "Joe Smith" and not knowing that person was actually "JS1234" from my online community of friends. Of course, if you want to remain anonymous, that's fine too.

I thank you in advance for your support, and I look forward to doing my best in the race as well as raising as much money as I can for this worthwhile organization. Feel free to drop me a note at PhillyFitTrainer@aol.com if you have questions and check back to my homepage at PhillyDude's LIVESTRONG 10K Challenge to keep track of my progress and look for your name on the "honor roll."

Your pal, PhillyDude

[eyeballrene]

Nice job, Philly! I hope you raise a lot of money!

I thought I'd say hi here since I've rarely posted...

[phillydude]

Originally Posted by eyeballrene

Nice job, Philly! I hope you raise a lot of money!

I thought I'd say hi here since I've rarely posted...

Thanks! I didn't even know you had an account over here!

[eyeballrene]

I've had the account here for a while but never used it...

[Omaha]

Will this be held yearly in Philadelphia?

I think I'd be interested in competing next year.

[phillydude]

Originally Posted by Omaha

Will this be held yearly in Philadelphia?

I think I'd be interested in competing next year.

No guarantee that it will be in Philly again next year.

Why not do it this year?

[Omaha]

Originally Posted by phillydude

No guarantee that it will be in Philly again next year.

Why not do it this year?

I could run 10 miles no problem but hell I doubt I could do it under 80-100 mins. I'm not in any decent marathon running form. At least not for a good showing.

How can I sign up? I might change my mind by september.

[phillydude]

Originally Posted by Omaha

I could run 10 miles no problem but hell I doubt I could do it under 80-100 mins. I'm not in any decent marathon running form. At least not for a good showing.

How can I sign up? I might change my mind by september.

They have a 5K and a 10K (3 miles and 6 miles) for the running part.

It's not about how fast you can run, it's about helping people.

You can probably sign up "day of" provided you pay the entry fee and the minimum donation amount. Details are on the website. Hope to see you there.

[Omaha]

I'll give it some serious consideration. Thanks for the info.

[phillydude]

Wow... I just got an e-mail from the LIVESTRONG Challenge folks, letting me know that I've passed the 1/4 waypoint towards my goal of $1000 (or $100 per km towards my 10K run). Thanks to three JSF members, who collectively stepped have up and sponsored the first 2.5k of my race... I will be thinking of them during each step I take on September 10th.

But that's not the point of this post. As you may know, I have been doing a major fundraiser for charity every year for many years now... last year I did a 175 mile, two-day bike ride weekend for the Multiple Sclerosis Society (journaled here) which raised over $1100 for that worthy cause.

In past years, I have ridden my bike from Philadelphia to Washington DC, and from Orlando to Miami to rasie money for AIDS, and I have played three rounds of golf (walking) in one day for the American Cancer Society. I also sat on the board of directors for the Philadelphia area March of Dimes, and participated in countless fundraisers for that organization.

But that's not the point of this post either. Along with the note I received from the LAF about the LIVESTRONG Challenge, there was a "schedule of incentives"... prizes that are awarded for reaching different fundraising goals. And while other events I have done either had steep "entry fees" to insure that the organization raises enough money to cover expenses and generate revenues, or significant incentives to raise money (lots and lots of prizes), there are very few "bonus levels" associated with the LIVESTRONG Challenge.

At $1000 (which corresponds with my fundraising goal), you get a backpack (in comparison, my $1000 effort for MS last year got me a bike jersey, bike shorts, short sleeve t-shirt, long sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt, VIP dinner, and a plaque).

To get a jersey from the LIVESTRONG Challenge (either a bike jersey or a running shirt) you need to raise $7500. That's not a missing decimal point. That's seventy-five hundred dollars.

The $15,000 level is pretty kewl though... a trip to the Ride For The Roses in Austin TX, including air, hotel, and a VIP dinner. It doesn't appear that it actually includes a spot to RIDE in the RFTR, however... I'm sure you would need to do the separate fundraising efforts to participate in that.

At $20,000, you actually get to meet Lance "at a special autograph session." Now I'm not sure how this event will be handled, but I've been to "special autograph sessions" before, and they have ranged from cocktail party-style mixers where you actually get to talk to the guest of honor to cattle-call events where you line up, file past a table, get to say hello and have ONE item signed (from the list of approved items), and keep moving... no photos, no small talk, please don't touch the guest of honor. At $20,000, I'd hope it would be more towards the latter than the former.

I guess the point was that this event has much higher ambitions than many of the other events that I have done in the past... and for that reason, I am going to have to work harder in order to make my contribution seem significant in the overall scheme of things. Thanks for reading and thanks for your support.

[phillydude]

In case you missed the big news, thanks to the support of John Stone, I'm offering a free Navy Blue LIVESTRONG-style bracelet which says "John Stone Fitness" to anyone from the JSF forums who makes a donation of $10.00 or more. Click here for all the details or click on the big yellow banner at the bottom of this post to go right to my personal LIVESTRONG Challenge page. All proceeds go directly to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Thanks in advance!

[phillydude]

As John has posted in his daily updates, we are now offering a LIVESTRONG style John Stone Fitness bracelet for anyone who makes a donation of $10.00 or more to the Lance Armstrong Foundation through my 10K Challenge page. And thanks to a generous anonymous JSF member, we have created a fund which will "fill in the gap" between any donation of $5.00 or more to the qualifying level of $10.00.

So even if you can only donate $5.00 to the cause, you can still get your JSF bracelet! Visit THIS THREAD to learn more about the bracelets or visit my LIVESTRONG page by clicking the banner ad below to donate!

[TheRyanator]

Can I still get one? I will throw $5 bucks your way...JSF bracelet=cool.

[phillydude]

Originally Posted by TheRyanator

Can I still get one? I will throw $5 bucks your way...JSF bracelet=cool.

Yep... clicky on the linky and go from there...

[phillydude]

Well... the LIVESTRONG Challenge is in the history books. If I haven't said it enough, THANK YOU to all my friends here at JSF who collectively donated over $1000 to the Lance Armstrong Foundation to support my participation in this event. The 2900 people who participated today (running or walking 5k or 10k, or cycling 100, 70, 40, or 10 miles) raised over $2.4 million dollars. As for the event itself... let's just say there were problems. Not MY problems, but problems none the less.

Let's start from the pre-dawn hours. The grounds were supposed to open at 6am, with opening ceremonies at 6:45, the 100 mile cyclists to leave at 7am, and my race, the 10K, was supposed to go at 7:40. Since I was on the Harley, and wasn't able to get to early packet pickup on Saturday, I was on the road at 5:30 and pulled in at six on the dot. And at 6:01, the lights in the parking lot went out, rendering any attempt at traffic and parking control useless. The volunteers who were trying to direct people had no flashlights, and the combination of people trying to unload and warm up on their bicycles with obviously hurried people in cars trying to park made for a dangerous situation.

But I pulled the Harley into a half-spot right up in the front of the lot and headed off to change into my running gear. At 6:45, I was in front of the stage for the opening ceremonies. I might have been the only one. By 7:15, things were finally getting underway, and with all the "thank yous" and the pomp and circumstance, the first bike didn't roll out until 7:45. At 8:00, they started staging the 5K runners and walkers... another stroke of genius, to let the slowest group go out BEFORE the faster runners. So by 8:20, when the 10K gun finally went off, the first mile of the course (which was on the narrow walking paths and private roads of a college campus) was completely clogged with large groups of people out for a Sunday stroll.

By the time we reached the main gates of the college, where the 5K turned around (which would be the 2.5K mark), things had cleared out a little, and I passed the two mile clock at 16.20, which on my watch was sixteen flat (allowing for the delay from the gun to the starting line). From the main gates, we were supposed to do two 2.5k loops on the residential streets around the campus and then return to the grounds for the remainder of the run. So we loop around once... and we loop around twice... and we come up to the entrance to the campus... and the volunteers are all cheering and clapping and excited... and none of them directed us back through the main gates.

I figured, "Oh ok... we're probably going in through a different entrance." So we ran, and we ran, and we ran some more, and we started to realize that we were now running a THIRD 2.5k loop. Now I'm not talking about a few runners... I'm talking about the majority of the entire field. There were first time racers out there, running. There were cancer patients out there, running. And there were people who probably had never run six miles in their lives, but were out there running, running to fight cancer, running to remember loved ones, running the race of their lives. And now they were looking at a 12.5k race instead of a 10k race.

An extra 2.5k is not a big deal to me, but it was big deal (and a long way) to a lot of the people out there today. For some of them, it meant the difference between running across the finish line in triumph and walking the last mile in defeat. And I felt bad for those people, who had trained and struggled and battled all their own personal issues, and were now hurting. To their credit, a lot of them sucked it up and kept on running. But there were others who just couldn't run any more.

As for me, I lost a little time on the extra loop. Emotionally and mentally, the last loop was a blur. And I had passed up the water stop at the four mile mark, thinking I was fine to finish the race without any additional fluids (not knowing about the extra distance), and my tank was running empty by the time we got to the main campus gates again for the last 1.25 miles to the finish line. I ended up crossing in 1.09.30, which to my best guess paced out to a average 8.56 mile. And to top it off, the fine folks from Shiner Beer had apparently overslept, as their booth was still unstaffed when I got there at 9:30am (yes, it was the first place I headed after I crossed the finish line). So no Shiner Bock for me either... which could have been the saving grace of a sunny Sunday morning.

Still I accomplished what I had hoped to do. I helped to raise over $1000 personally, and over $2.4 million overall. I finished the race, even if it was a little further than I had expected and slower than I had planned. I got a really nice Nike LIVESTRONG backpack and a couple Nike LIVESTRONG T-shirts (one from the race and one from the radio station "team" which I was a part of), and bought myself a Nike LIVESTRONG running hat as a birthday present. And I can say that, with the help of my friends at John Stone Fitness, I met the LIVESTRONG Challenge. Thank you all for your support.

[Butterflyer]

Yay for completing the LIVESTRONG challenge!! Especially with the extra distance. Sorry to hear about the organizational problems.

[phillydude]

Found out today that my official fundraising total was $1107.00... thank you all again.

[Justitia]

Originally Posted by phillydude

Found out today that my official fundraising total was $1107.00... thank you all again.

[phillydude]

The race results from the LIVESTRONG Challenge have been posted. It's easy to see where the race went "off course"...

The 18th place male finished in 47.12.
The 19th place male finished in 55.33.

According to my calculations, I would have finished somewhere around 48:30 had we not taken the wrong "advices."

[steeletkd]

Great job!!! I'll see what I can do with getting you a Shiner Bock at the finish line in Columbus... that stuff is liquid gold!!