Missing the Purple!

I’m missing the purple! Since January, when I walked / ran the Arizona Marathon, I’ve not had a lot of involvement with Team in Training. I was a "cheerleader" for the Purple People at the Shamrock Marathon in March, and I’ve attended a few practices of the fall team this summer. But that’s been about it.

A few weeks ago, I started wearing my purplish – pink T.E.A.M. (Train – Endure – Achieve – Matter) TNT wristband again. Clearly TNT is on my mind, and wearing the wristband made me feel more connected from a distance.

I’m planning on going to the TNT practice this Saturday. For me it is always like a little homecoming because I see people there that I like a lot but don't often see otherwise. I am not looking forward to the 5:45AM start, which means getting up by about 4:45AM on a Saturday. But it is worth it. Because of many travels and one illness, I have been unavailable for the last five or six weeks to go train with these guys and gals.

I am close to the point of joining back up for my fourth TNT season, fifth if you count the one in winter / spring 2007 where I was a mentor but not a participant. TNT Virginia isn’t doing a winter season this year, or otherwise I would have signed on to the winter team for the Disney Marathon. I was even starting to compose my first fund-raising message specifically for Disney (“I know that this sounds a little Goofy or even Dopey, but I am signing up for my fourth TNT marathon, hardly not a Mickey Mouse accomplishment….”) when I learned that this marathon was not in the Virginia plans.

So instead, I am leaning towards the Country Music Marathon next April in Nashville, Tennessee. The team won’t form up until early November, so I still have several months before being fully engaged. But I do have the option of signing up and starting fund-raising any time I want.

I feel like that time should be soon. I always set my fund-raising goal high, and it takes a lot of work. I need to think about a monetary goal, and then design an approach and campaign to try to reach that goal. I need to think about a creative design for my TNT web page. I need to start thinking about a catchy email to kick-start my campaign, something original that I’ve not used before. Last year, my initial message was “Rumors About Art and Team in Training”. I really liked it, but can’t use the same thing again this time. Hmmm, maybe “More Rumors About Art and Team in Training”? Or maybe more of a presidential campaign theme - “… My name is Art and I approved this message”. That might work. I need to get the creative juices flowing.

I am a little nervous about fund-raising this time around. I keep hearing about how tough it is with $4.00 gasoline, crashing stock markets, falling home prices, and people’s perceptions that the economy is not good. But all I can do is my best. People will give generously to a good cause, and curing cancer is a pretty darn good one. Each time I do this, I learn a little more about what works and what doesn’t. I am no longer the “deer in the headlights” fund-raising rookie that I was in 2005! People I know have always been extremely generous.

We never know what we can accomplish until we set a goal and try to reach it. There is a quote from Michelangelo that I really like and it applies to Team in Training very well: “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

This is so true! Until we set our goal to do a marathon, how will we know if we can do it or not? If we don’t try to raise $10,000 for a good cause, how will we know whether it is possible? I intend on finding out, again, what is possible and what is not – starting soon!