I got the call I’ve been waiting for…

This past Thursday I got the phone call I’ve been hoping for from Samaritans of Boston…

“We’d like to congratulate you on joining the Samaritan’s 2016 Boston Marathon team!”

Sweet! Awesome! This put my brain and body in action! Exciting times! I can’t wait to start training and get my journey started towards touching lives and raising awareness for this great charity in the fight against suicide.

I’ve been thinking about this for months. Such a relief to finally hear the official news! We had a quick phone call…and then…

The first thing I did…

…was look up the date of the marathon 🙂

Patriot’s Day of course. But that isn’t much help. Marathon Monday??? Nope, still not helping. Not a celebrated holiday in Minnesota (although I was surprised to see that Wisconsin is one of only three states to celebrate this as a public holiday). So when is it? The third Monday in April. And it has been since 1969 (providing a 3-day weekend in Massachusetts). Before that it was always celebrated on April 19th, the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War, in 1775.

So…what’s the date next year? Monday, April 18, 2016.

156 days away as of today (click here for countdown updates).

The next thing I did…

…I searched for when an 18-week marathon training plan should start leading up to Patriot’s Day. Mid- to end-December. Yikes – sooner than I thought 🙂 And all I’ve heard about are those hills on the course. No lie, I ran up and down the steepest hill I could find 3x yesterday over lunch!!

How did all of this start for me?

Here’s my first email last year to Samaritan’s…this is how dreams start!

From: Dave Thompson [mailto:dcthmpsnep@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2015 12:35 AM
To: Eve Rabinowitz
Subject: Re: Samaritans – request for info on running with 2016 marathon team

Eve-

Hello. I’m interested to learn information about running in the 2016 Boston Marathon with the Samaritan team. My sister died of suicide in 2012 and her team (Katherine’s Pride) has been a top fundraising team for the Samaritans 5k/events the past few years. I am running my first marathon this May (in Minnesota), and I am interested to hear more information about possibly running with the Samaritan team next year in Boston. Most of my family still lives in NH/MA and this is definitely a cause that I believe in.

I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks!

-Dave