Seven Weeks of Training Left Until the Country Music Marathon!

Hello team!

Can you believe that race day is a little less than 7 weeks away?!

As of today, we’ve raised $4,600 toward our goal of $40,000. It’s so exciting to see new donations come in each day – let’s all keep it up! If you have any questions or need ideas about fundraising, please let me know.

Please pass on any praise reports about your fundraising – we’d love to feature them on the Run for Mercy blog!

I wanted to give a little shout out to our top 3 fundraisers so far: Teresa Epps, Tina Brown and Sandy Haynie! Some of you are getting really close to $1,000 raised and earning a gift card!

RUNNING THIS WEEK
You should find your runs/walks getting pretty long by now. Keep in mind that it’s ok if you’re having some aches and pains or feeling tired and drained. You’re in the thick of training, and that’s totally normal. You’ll taper your runs/walks down a bit closer to rest day, and this will allow your body time to recover so that you feel fresh when you reach the start line.

Fellow team member Trish Squittieri and I will be running together Saturday morning. Should you be interested in joining us, please email me and let me know. We will run about 16 miles at a 10:30 pace. You can join us for some or all of it if you would like. We will determine a location later this week.

TEAM DINNER
We will have the team pre-race dinner here at the Nashville Mercy home on Friday night, April 29th. I will send out more specific details soon, but I just wanted to remind you that you must meet the $100 fundraising minimum to receive the invitation to the dinner. Keep up the hard work with fundraising!

SHIRTS
They have been ordered! When you reach the $100 fundraising minimum, you will be able to pick yours up here at the office so that you can train in it. I’ll let you know when they arrive. They are going to be AWESOME.

If you did not submit a shirt size to me, I was not able to order you a shirt. However, we do have some other Run for Mercy shirts that you can have if you would like one.

I hope you all have a great week! Please let me know if you have any questions about any aspect of preparing for the race!

-Melanie Blair, Team Mercy Coach

Time to Start Training and Fundraising!

Hello everyone!

Many of you are training for the upcoming Music City Half and Full Marathon. If you’re training for the half and you’re following one of the training plans posted on www.runformercy.com/cmmarathon2011 , you’ll start the plan the week of February 7. However, you should be getting yourself out and moving (whether walking or running) for at least 30 minutes three times a week so that you’ll be ready. I know it’s cold, but you can still run outside. Just remember that you warm up about 20 degrees when you get moving, so the key is to make sure you don’t over OR under dress.

It’s not too early to get started on fundraising! Send emails/letters to everyone you know to let them know you’re running the race and fundraising for Mercy. Give them the link to your personal fundraising page, post the link on your Facebook and/or Twitter and share your link as your away status on your gmail gchat. Also, please let anyone who may be interested in running with us know we’d love to have them join our team. It is our goal to get 50 more people on the team in addition to the 50 we have!

If you’d like to run with Mercy Coach Melanie Blair this week, she will be attending the East Nasty group run in East Nashville this Wednesday. The group meets at 6pm at the corner of 11th and Holly. The run this week is a little over 4 miles long, but you can cut it short if needed by looking at the map and planning accordingly (Route #4 on www.eastnastyforlife.com ). Melanie will be running 10-12 miles on Saturday morning, so email her at mblair@mercyministries.com if you’re already up to that distance and you’d like to join her.

Finally, Fleet Feet Sports in Brentwood (an excellent place to purchase running shoes, clothes, fuel, etc.) is offering a Winter Speed Sessions clinic. It starts February 5th and lasts for 10 Tuesdays. This is an excellent way to get in one of your weekly training runs. There is always a large group (consisting of both beginners and veterans), a coach who leads the workouts and gives feedback and a tech shirt is included in the clinic. It’s only $50 for the 10-session clinic! Feel free to check it out at https://www.signmeup.com/site/reg/register.aspx?fid=N32VWJ7.

Be on the lookout for a dinner sometime soon where the team can get together and meet outside of the running spectrum.

Happy training and fundraising this week! Let us know if we can assist you in any way!

“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1

Fundraising Made Easy!

Signing up for the Mercy Ministries Run For Mercy 5K and Family Walk is so easy. You can sign up as an individual runner, create a whole team, or if you'd rather spend time on the couch, you can still sign up as a virtual runner! If you're one of the first to register, you even get a t-shirt and drawstring backpack. Refer a friend and you get a cool water bottle.

But for many, fundraising can be an intimidating task. Don't sweat it. It's easier than you think. One of last year’s participants, Melanie, shares what she did to raise $680!

Here is what I did last year to raise $680:

• I created my team.

• I put the link for my team on my Facebook page and Twitter page from time to time (I posted it repeatedly and more often as the date got closer since many people don’t like to commit to things like this far in advance).

• I sent out personal emails to everyone I knew telling them about the event and asking them to sign up to run or walk with me and let them know that if they couldn’t attend the event, they could make a gift to my team or sign up as a virtual runner and still get a shirt and goody bag! Many of my local friends did the virtual runner thing so they could get those items, and some out of town friends who had no need for Nashville coupons made a donation.

• I found the official event page on Facebook and invited all of my Facebook friends to it.

• I wrote about the event on my blog and shared the link in case any of my readers wanted to go make a donation. I actually got about $50 donated this way from strangers in other states who read my blog.

• I talked about the event to friends and family and followed up with the info to sign up.

• I sent reminder personal emails to everyone I knew as the event date got closer to remind anyone who hadn’t signed up to please consider doing so.

• I told all my local friends and family that I’d be holding a pasta party at my house the night before as a thank you for their support (and then I did it!) This got a few extra people on board, and I got to have a fun night having dinner with my friends before the event.

I am already doing the same things this year. I just started last week and already have $205 from doing this sort of thing!

Feel free to use these great ideas to reach your fundraising goals and be creative. The most important part is getting the word out. Many are willing to give; they just need to be asked. So sign up, refer a friend, and get ready to Run For Mercy!