By the time Sunday rolled around, it was all in a higher power's hands. And I mean that literally. First thing you may be wondering is, How did Sweat-4-Pets go? Well, after a month of anticipation--well, make that a year because we begin laying the groundwork for this right after the event. It is truly a labor of love. We had nearly 350 participants--all combined--the walk and the run. Over three hundred people finished the races. I have said this before and will say it again--St. Louis is one of the most generous animal-loving communities in the country!
We could not have asked for better weather. Just as the weekend was rolling around, the temperature had dropped like twenty degrees for the daytime high. Thank goodness! Everyone around here was pretty tired of the seventy degree weather. It's November for crying out loud! I think this cool front really helped bring more folks out on Sunday morning because I would estimate our volunteers registered over one hundred more folks the morning of the event.
I began to really feel the pinch though about mid-week as more and more registrants were pouring in. I put the pre-paks together in my garage. This is my base of operation for two weeks prior. Every day a registration list arrives--either from Fleet Feet (our wonderful race timing partners) or from our mail box, out to the garage I'd go with list in hand, carefully pulling t-shirts, folding every single one in the manner I was taught during my nearly eighteen years in retail (no I did not use a t-shirt folding board!--but I am one heck of a t-shirt folder by god!), then, carefully placing each registrant's packet in alphabetical order. I had over three hundred packets in my garage by Friday. To say I was stressed is an understatement. Okay? When the temperatures dropped, my days I spent in the garage left me bone tired. Each evening I went to bed saying a prayer that everything would be "okay". My mantra: Please let this day go well. Please let the folks arrive safely, run safely, remember the animals and come back next year. Every night I prayed.
I should have more confidence in myself by now--it's been ten years. Nope. Always scared. Always nervous. I think that to some extent, it is quite healthy to be nervous. But I have this "overabundance" of nervousness that sort of takes over. I think it is a good survival mechanism.
Friday and Saturday prior there was much to do. I had emails coming in with last minute requests for registering. We had closed the online registration by then. I was happy to help the folks I could. Every time I regsitered someone, I thought about the family, cat or dog that would be spayed or neutered and NOT end up in a shelter meeting the "inevitable" so many unwanted animals face. Lizzie and I were on the email or phone all week on and off (and neither one of us likes to talk on the phone!)--she is my anchor through this! (Lizzie is OpSpot's Executive Director.)
I looked at my dogs and would talk to them--then we'd go for a walk in the back yard and I'd use their calmness to calm me. Canine therapy is my number one support! (Well, and Dr. Thyme, too!) God knows he deserves a medal for being my hero of the weekend!
I spent all day Saturday at Fleet Feet giving out pre-registrations to our wonderful participants. Usually our pre-pak pick-up runs about 50 or so folks. However, on Saturday--I was swamped! Nonstop--all day--a line of people--who were all VERY nice even though many had to wait a few minutes for their packets. The store was so busy that day, too. The break in the weather brings the runners out. By the time I took my first "biology" break--I looked at the clock and it was 1:30--WHEW! I only had an apple to eat! I stayed until four just to be sure I didn't miss anyone.
Sunday we awoke at 5 a.m. We had packed both cars with the necessary items for the day's journey. All of the work, all the planning, this was it. We were ready! Uh, ready, but without a camera! OMG! What? I asked Dr.Thyme on Sunday: Um, honey, what kind of pictures did you get? I don't remember seeing you taking any. Then. . . head down, eyes sort of looking away, then at me: I just couldn't bear to tell you this at the event, but when we walked out the door, I walked out without my camera. OH--we both just laughed so hard. I sort of cried a bit, too. This was our first year without my husband's wonderful photos. We both realized that this year's event would be our most memorable because of the number of people we had on hand, and because of the amount of stress we carried with us throughout the day.
We had over thirty volunteers join us! Every single one of them--saints! Our volunteer organizer is incredible! Several kind and generous folks from Dr.Thyme's office attended, too. This made my day! They don't have to come out on a very cold Sunday at eight a.m.--yet they do! I am so thankful for them! Let's not forget the runners and walkers--what an incredible group of people!
So, finally--Lizzie and I are interviewed at the local NBC affiliate for our yearly "on air" plug. Talk about a jitter-enhancer. Cripes. I am ALWAYS a bundle of a hot mess by the time this rolls around! Lizzie and I support each other. But the folks in the studio are so nice, and we are generously supported by our morning anchor, Jennifer Blome--for ten years running. She is an animal lover through and through. We owe a lot to her for all the years of support. Such an animal champion! She is a very well-known animal lover in our community--she began a morning segment dedicated to finding a home for shelter animals: Sammy's Stars. She has worked hard to keep this segment on the air and all of us in the animal community throughout St. Louis love her for this--we know it is from the heart. The weekend producer, Cassidy and I spoke over the phone--turns out he, too, is an animal lover! And, he had even whipped up one of my recipes from this very blog--I was quite flattered and humbled. He arranged for our interview time and all.
We also have a radio personality on hand: Rick Sanborn of K-Hits 96.3 FM--who, for the past several years has joined us out of the kindness of his heart to load up his car with speakers, a mike and several aweome CDs of classic Rock 'N Roll tunes. This is the "mood-making" for the day--I just love the music--so do the participants and volunteers. It is a welcome background to our day. His fave: Mick Jagger--so we get a lot of the Stones piped out into the crowd!
Finally, after the minutes tick down and I am nearly ready to pass out-- I ran the 5k race! This is my capstone moment. All the work of the day is behind us--well, for the most part--we still have to hand out medals. But I love this park and this run! My finish time was 28:21--I finished third in my Almost Fifty age group (dang it)--came in 49th out of 200 some 5k participants! Whew. I think I was running out ALL of the week's "stuff"--running for the animals, running to thank all the runners joining us! This is one of my best finish times. It was a total blast. I had the time of my life!
For those interested--here is a link to the interview we did on Saturday:
http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=226824
It is brief, and it is a snapshot of two women on the "verge" of--and you fill in the blank! We made it--we raised a lot of money--for a really good cause: Opspot.org!
I will back to the "food" stuff shortly!
We could not have asked for better weather. Just as the weekend was rolling around, the temperature had dropped like twenty degrees for the daytime high. Thank goodness! Everyone around here was pretty tired of the seventy degree weather. It's November for crying out loud! I think this cool front really helped bring more folks out on Sunday morning because I would estimate our volunteers registered over one hundred more folks the morning of the event.
I began to really feel the pinch though about mid-week as more and more registrants were pouring in. I put the pre-paks together in my garage. This is my base of operation for two weeks prior. Every day a registration list arrives--either from Fleet Feet (our wonderful race timing partners) or from our mail box, out to the garage I'd go with list in hand, carefully pulling t-shirts, folding every single one in the manner I was taught during my nearly eighteen years in retail (no I did not use a t-shirt folding board!--but I am one heck of a t-shirt folder by god!), then, carefully placing each registrant's packet in alphabetical order. I had over three hundred packets in my garage by Friday. To say I was stressed is an understatement. Okay? When the temperatures dropped, my days I spent in the garage left me bone tired. Each evening I went to bed saying a prayer that everything would be "okay". My mantra: Please let this day go well. Please let the folks arrive safely, run safely, remember the animals and come back next year. Every night I prayed.
I should have more confidence in myself by now--it's been ten years. Nope. Always scared. Always nervous. I think that to some extent, it is quite healthy to be nervous. But I have this "overabundance" of nervousness that sort of takes over. I think it is a good survival mechanism.
Friday and Saturday prior there was much to do. I had emails coming in with last minute requests for registering. We had closed the online registration by then. I was happy to help the folks I could. Every time I regsitered someone, I thought about the family, cat or dog that would be spayed or neutered and NOT end up in a shelter meeting the "inevitable" so many unwanted animals face. Lizzie and I were on the email or phone all week on and off (and neither one of us likes to talk on the phone!)--she is my anchor through this! (Lizzie is OpSpot's Executive Director.)
I looked at my dogs and would talk to them--then we'd go for a walk in the back yard and I'd use their calmness to calm me. Canine therapy is my number one support! (Well, and Dr. Thyme, too!) God knows he deserves a medal for being my hero of the weekend!
I spent all day Saturday at Fleet Feet giving out pre-registrations to our wonderful participants. Usually our pre-pak pick-up runs about 50 or so folks. However, on Saturday--I was swamped! Nonstop--all day--a line of people--who were all VERY nice even though many had to wait a few minutes for their packets. The store was so busy that day, too. The break in the weather brings the runners out. By the time I took my first "biology" break--I looked at the clock and it was 1:30--WHEW! I only had an apple to eat! I stayed until four just to be sure I didn't miss anyone.
Sunday we awoke at 5 a.m. We had packed both cars with the necessary items for the day's journey. All of the work, all the planning, this was it. We were ready! Uh, ready, but without a camera! OMG! What? I asked Dr.Thyme on Sunday: Um, honey, what kind of pictures did you get? I don't remember seeing you taking any. Then. . . head down, eyes sort of looking away, then at me: I just couldn't bear to tell you this at the event, but when we walked out the door, I walked out without my camera. OH--we both just laughed so hard. I sort of cried a bit, too. This was our first year without my husband's wonderful photos. We both realized that this year's event would be our most memorable because of the number of people we had on hand, and because of the amount of stress we carried with us throughout the day.
We had over thirty volunteers join us! Every single one of them--saints! Our volunteer organizer is incredible! Several kind and generous folks from Dr.Thyme's office attended, too. This made my day! They don't have to come out on a very cold Sunday at eight a.m.--yet they do! I am so thankful for them! Let's not forget the runners and walkers--what an incredible group of people!
So, finally--Lizzie and I are interviewed at the local NBC affiliate for our yearly "on air" plug. Talk about a jitter-enhancer. Cripes. I am ALWAYS a bundle of a hot mess by the time this rolls around! Lizzie and I support each other. But the folks in the studio are so nice, and we are generously supported by our morning anchor, Jennifer Blome--for ten years running. She is an animal lover through and through. We owe a lot to her for all the years of support. Such an animal champion! She is a very well-known animal lover in our community--she began a morning segment dedicated to finding a home for shelter animals: Sammy's Stars. She has worked hard to keep this segment on the air and all of us in the animal community throughout St. Louis love her for this--we know it is from the heart. The weekend producer, Cassidy and I spoke over the phone--turns out he, too, is an animal lover! And, he had even whipped up one of my recipes from this very blog--I was quite flattered and humbled. He arranged for our interview time and all.
We also have a radio personality on hand: Rick Sanborn of K-Hits 96.3 FM--who, for the past several years has joined us out of the kindness of his heart to load up his car with speakers, a mike and several aweome CDs of classic Rock 'N Roll tunes. This is the "mood-making" for the day--I just love the music--so do the participants and volunteers. It is a welcome background to our day. His fave: Mick Jagger--so we get a lot of the Stones piped out into the crowd!
Finally, after the minutes tick down and I am nearly ready to pass out-- I ran the 5k race! This is my capstone moment. All the work of the day is behind us--well, for the most part--we still have to hand out medals. But I love this park and this run! My finish time was 28:21--I finished third in my Almost Fifty age group (dang it)--came in 49th out of 200 some 5k participants! Whew. I think I was running out ALL of the week's "stuff"--running for the animals, running to thank all the runners joining us! This is one of my best finish times. It was a total blast. I had the time of my life!
For those interested--here is a link to the interview we did on Saturday:
http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=226824
It is brief, and it is a snapshot of two women on the "verge" of--and you fill in the blank! We made it--we raised a lot of money--for a really good cause: Opspot.org!
I will back to the "food" stuff shortly!
I'm so glad your fundraiser was such a huge success. I watched the video and you did a great job. You didn't look nervous at all. Sheba was gorgeous and very well behaved. I hope you can spend some time just relaxing for a while, you deserve it.
ReplyDeleteI was watching the local news on Sunday and saw you!!!! I was so excited :) I think you did a great job on TV (I would have passed out for sure). Sheba is a beautiful gal. Congratulations on the wonderful job you are doing.
ReplyDeleteNice job on TV interview and with the success of the fundraiser!
ReplyDeleteDaniela
I am so glad that you had such a successful weekend. I'm proud of you...and I know I'm only one of many. You looked so poised and confident on your interview. Great job! Thank you for sharing. I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday night!
ReplyDeleteHi Ladies! Thanks so much for the kind notes and all. I am still "recovering". And, Nupur, you are too funny--YES, passing out crosses my mind every year this interview rolls around! We do it for the dogs and cats--truly. But Lizzie and I support each other, too! We leave the studio with "noodle legs"--we have Sheba on hand to help! Thanks so much you guys!
ReplyDeleteYou look so calm and confident on TV! And Sheba did a wonderful job as well. I am thrilled that so many people turned out to support such a worthy cause, and you are a saint for giving so much of yourself for the animals!
ReplyDeleteGreat job! It's so wonderful that you do this.
ReplyDelete