Like my new shirt?

If you hit your initial fund-raising goal in CrowdRise they send you a shirt. I chose this one over “Decent Human” 🙂

Want to feel better? Happier? Healthier? Donating to my cause of suicide prevention and fighting the stigma of suicide and mental illness, will do all those (I’ll let you google ‘donating and happiness’ on your own).

Want to fight depression? Want to fight YOUR depression? Same answer – donate to my cause 🙂 Don’t believe me? You just said you wanted to be happier, healthier, etc – how’s not donating to me treating you 😉 Heh heh. It’s against my nature to always be asking for donations, but guess what? It works. No guilt here (I’m learning). WE are saving lives. A simple donation will fight depression in so many ways. Other small steps referenced in this article that we can all do each day to impact our well-being:

• Be kind to others
• Express gratitude
• Think optimistically
• Meditate on the good things in life

Today’s the day. Pick one of those. Go easy on yourself. Have fun with them. Make connections. Share these easy tips with others. Save lives.

Training continues to go well. Crazy when 13 miles now is a “short week”. What Yogi Berra said about baseball definitely applies to my training, “…is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical.” It’s crazy to think that I only have five weeks of training left, and only two more long runs (a 19 mile run, and a 20 mile run, and then supposedly I’ll be ready). The closer the race gets (< 50 days!) the more questions I get from people. I love the energy, excitement and support around this. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and encouragement.

I also watched a movie this past week, Spirit of the Marathon. It got my adrenaline pumping several times as it followed six runners preparing for the Chicago Marathon. A great quote from the movie was from John Bingham, who said:

“So most of us are out there for the same reason, right? We just want to have a good time. You paid for that course to be open as long as it’s going to be open. And the faster you run, the less value you’re getting for your marathon dollar. So the wise marathon consumer is going to be out there as long as we can…you do not want to rush that experience.”

I love that. I don’t want to rush my marathon experience. If you donated to my cause and have expectations that I’m going to run fast…well…you may want to try getting your money back from me? Ha – good luck with that!

It’s been a great past two weeks in terms of support and awareness. I’m over $12,000 thanks to all of your support – only $7,500 left to hit my next target of $20,000! A highlight is that I was the “Top Story” in the Rochester Sentinel (Rochester, Indiana) on March 2nd (it costs a minimum of $4.50 to see that article – sorry). Rochester (“City of Friendship and Pride”) is the town that my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc are from and/or live in still. It holds a special place in my heart and I’m thrilled to make the news there. My first marathon newspaper story!

And did I mention that I got a free t-shirt 🙂

As always, I can’t thank you all enough for reading these messages, being there for those around you, and helping fight the stigma of suicide and mental illness. WE are saving lives. Thank you.