Keep Your Beer Cold and Cure Cancer!!

Well, it has been almost a month since my last post. My training is going well. I completed a 7-mile run on Sunday while visiting my sister in Massachusetts. It was misty, wet from lots of snow melt but warm. I felt good, finished strong and felt like I could keep on going.

As for fundraising, I am now just about a quarter of the way to the goal of $10,000. Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far, your donations and support are greatly appreciated.

Getting together with family for Christmas was great and gave me a chance to get together with my all-star fundraising team. We worked out the details for a t-shirt, finalized some details for the party on January 30th and picked up the great koozies that Karen had made....I would refer to them as irreverent yet eloquent. We are selling the koozies for $5 and all proceeds go to Dana Farber and to the fundraising goal. It's a no-brainer....$5 to keep your beer cold and cure cancer!!

The koozie works well for both bottles and cans (I researched this personally). They are available in grey (grey ribbon for lung cancer) and pink (pink ribbon for breast cancer). If you interested in a koozie, send me an email (thenaghen@gmail.com) and we'll figure how to get them to you.

I will try not to go so long until my next post. Happy and safe New Year to all. I hope to see you at the party on January 30th.

Back on Track and Ready to Roll!

Well, after a week on the Arc Trainer and plenty of stretching, my knee is feeling good and in the last week I have logged runs 4, 4.25 and 4.5 miles with no problems. My actual marathon training program doesn't start until December 14th when I will start ramping up my long run by about a mile each week but I have a pretty good base to start from and I am feeling confident and excited.

I have some fundraising letters ready to send out and recently sent out my first fundraising email and the donations are starting to come in, thanks to Jim L., Matt M., Matt C., Nancy G. and Terri S., I appreciate your generous support.

Slow and Steady...Very Slow

Nothing too exciting to report these days. I have been working to slowly increase my running base as I get ready to officially start my training program in mid December, when I will really ramp up the miles. Unfortunately, following an early morning run this week, when it was 2o degrees, my knee started bothering me again. It looks like I will have to spend more time on the elliptical over the next couple weeks and work on more stretching and strengthening. My self diagnosis is illiotibial band syndrome.



Good news is that I have a previously scheduled appointment on December 1st with an orthapedic/sports medicine doctor....hopefully that will help get me, and my knee, on the right track. Otherwise, I will have a lot of this in my future:

On the fundraising front, I have spent some time getting my first round of letters and emails ready to go out, thank the lord for "mail merge". The plans for the party on January 30th are coming along well and we already have quite a few great auction items (red sox tix, bruins tix, a charter fishing trip, paintings, great themed gift baskets and more) and are always looking for more.







Good luck to all the turkey trotters out there this week!

SAVE THE DATE!!

I got my training started this week after a couple very light weeks, thanks to some knee trouble. I have self-diagnosed it as a sore IT Band...thanks to the power of the internet. I have an appointment scheduled with an orthapedic/sports medicine doctor on December 1st which will hopefully provide a good stretching/strengthening program to keep me healthy through all the training miles but after a couple weeks rest I am feeling good and ready to get things going. I am going to try doing about half of my runs on a treadmill or ArcTrainer to limit the miles I have to do on the pavement, hopefully keeping me healthy for the long haul. I ran a total of 10 miles this week with an 11 mile bike ride (albeit a stationary bike) thrown in....the knee feels great and I am feeling confident.

On the fundraising side. I need to get going on a letter/email campaign but happy to announce that there is a fundraising event (i.e. PARTY!!) scheduled for January 30th. It will be at the VFW in Abington and we already have a band booked. Many thanks to my sister Karen for all her efforts to pull this event together. Keep the date open and tell your friends, all are welcome. Last but not least, still looking for any donations to include in the silent auction for the party.

Stay tuned for more details on the event and training updates.

FUNdraising Ideas...Help!

So just about 6 months until Marathon Monday and lots of training and fundraising to do between now and then. The many training miles I will need to do on my own, but the fundraising...for that I will need some help.


I am trying to come up with creative fundraising methods beyond just asking people for donations, although I will need to do that as well. If you have had success with other fundraising methods or have attended fun charity events I would love to hear about them. Here are some of the things I plan on doing to reach my fundraising goal of $9,000.


Super Bowl Squares and NCAA Tourney Brackets: I will run the typical pools for these two popular events but 50% of the proceeds will be given to the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, with the other 50% going to the winner(s). If anyone is interested in running a pool within their office or among their friends and neighbors it would be greatly apprectiated.


Fundraising Party: There will be a fundraising party, somewhere on the South Shore, likely sometime in January. This will undoubtably be made possible due to the superb efforts of my sister, Karen. We are still working out the details on food, entertainment, venue etc, but have lots of good ideas. As part of the party we are hoping to have a silent auction, which will be a key fundraising component. Any donations for the silent auction will be greatly appreciated, no donation is too small....or too big. Items like restaurant gift certificates, wine, sporting event tickets, gift baskets, golf gear, sports memorabilia or gift certificates for other services....just about anything anyone might be interested in.


Stay tuned for more details and if you have any suggestions on other good fundraising ideas, I would greatly appreciate it.

The Inaugural Post

I recently found out that I was selected to be a member of the 2010 Dana Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC) Team. On April 19, 2010 I will run the Boston Marathon as part of the DFMC Team and I need your support.



I was motivated to apply for a spot on the team and to take on the marathon as a tribute to my mother who lost her battle with cancer this past June and my father who we also lost to cancer in 2003. That is my story, however I think it is safe to say that there is not a single person who hasn’t been touched by cancer in some way.



I am training and fundraising for critical cancer research and care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. 100% of all contributions directly benefit the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber. Dana Farber is one of the top 5 cancer hospitals in the United States. It is internationally recognized for excellence in research and the treatment of cancer in children and adults.



The DFMC is a cause in which I strongly believe and through which I hope to help make a difference. I hope you will support Dana-Farber by making a gift to my run and, in doing so, make a difference along with me. I encourage you to make a donation in honor of someone close to your heart, as I will be wearing those names on my shirt on Marathon Day and dedicating each of the 26.2 miles to your honorees.



To make a donation, please go to: http://www.runDFMC.org/2010/tomh. You can make a donation online, or print out a donation form to fill out and send to me along with a check made out to "Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge."



If there are others who you think would support this cause, please forward this on. And don't forget to check with your office as many employers, even in this financial climate, are generously continuing the tradition of matching donations.



Stayed tuned for future updates on training and fundraising.