oh my goodness

Post by **klewlis** » Mon May 02, 2005 2:58 am

Apparently I haven't visited textkit in a WHOLE MONTH!

Where is my head???

Ok, I know where it is. Let me tell you. :)

On February 3 of this year I made a huge, life-changing decision (no, I am not getting married!).

I am going to run a marathon. In Rome. March 26, 2006. The race starts and ends at the Colisseum and runs past all the major landmarks in Rome. I am extremely excited--I have wanted to visit Italy for AGES and now here is my chance. While I am there I'm going to extend my trip and travel other parts of the country, to make the most of the visit.

I am going with Team Diabetes (www.teamdiabetes.ca), a division of the Canadian Diabetes Association. Basically, I raise money for them and they send me to Rome. Everyone wins!

And so I am training. Hard. I am currently up to around 25 miles/week and increasing. I will run my first half-marathon two weeks from today, here in Edmonton. I'll be doing a few more halfs through the summer and then begin pumping up the mileage again in the fall, to reach my goal.

Unfortunately, all of this means that I have not had a lot of time for my Greek and Latin (which is why I gave up my mod-ship too). But I will be popping in once in awhile still (ever-addicted, afterall!).

And I can use your help.

I have to raise $5500 (Canadian) in order to go. If I don't raise the money, I don't go to Rome.

All of the proceeds go to the Canadian Diabetes Association, which uses it for diabetes education, research, and support. Now, we are all affected by diabetes, so I'm sure we can all appreciate what a good cause this is.

You will also receive a tax receipt for any donations $15 and over (like I said, everyone wins!).

As a bonus incentive, I am conducting a pool. For every $25 that you donate, you can enter the pool to guess my finish time on race day. The person who guesses the closest time will receive a special gift that I will bring back from Rome (and yes, I can ship it outside of Canada if necessary). I may even take requests, since you are all classically-minded people and may have ideas about what you'd like.

I have set up a simple webpage with all the info--including the pool, amount raised, and my training logs so you can track my progress. You can find it at http://www.klewlis.net/running www.klewlis.net/running[/url]. The page also contains a direct link to the Team Diabetes website, where you can donate online.

I would really appreciate any support that you can give--so will the CDA. :) To donate, visit my running page and click on "donate online", then select "2006 City of Rome Marathon" and enter my name (Holly Vipond).

If you prefer to donate another way, email me and I will give you further directions (holly@klewlis.net).

Thanks for reading this far! And thanks to Jeff for letting me post this! (It is classically-related afterall...lol). I will be sure to keep you all updated on how things are coming.

Holly

Post by **klewlis** » Mon May 02, 2005 3:23 am

ps: If you do decide to donate online, please fire me an email or a pm to let me know, so that I can enter you in the pool. :)

Jeff Tirey · Post by **Jeff Tirey** » Tue May 03, 2005 3:47 pm

Hi everyone,

If you have a few bucks to spare for a good cause and want to help out Holly, please donate. I myself have donated a good bit of my time to our local Diabetic Association chapter. Let me tell you that this can be a devastating disease that in so many ways is very manageable. You're donation will go far I'm sure.

The Textkit forums would not be the place it is today without all of her countless hours of mod input and help and her participation.

Okay, I'm donating - but bring back digital photos!! And I'm going to send you a big Textkit poster that you HAVE to post somewhere fun and take a snapshot of, deal

?

I'm going to make this thread sticky for awhile to drum up some interest.

Jeff

Post by **klewlis** » Tue May 03, 2005 4:08 pm

jeff wrote:Okay, I'm donating - but bring back digital photos!! And I'm going to send you a big Textkit poster that you HAVE to post somewhere fun and take a snapshot of, deal :-)?

Of course! I will be taking copious amounts of photos (both digital and print) so I will post the best ones here (I wish I could go now instead of waiting until march). And the poster idea is great. I will definitely do that.

Post by **klewlis** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 7:27 pm

Hey everyone,

I thought I should post a bit of an update.

I am currently at 20% of my fundraising goal--that means I've raised $1100 of the $5500 that I need.

Every day I hear more stories and meet more people that have diabetes, or who have a loved one with diabetes. Over and over I hear, "I wish there was more we could do help." That's why I think it's such a great thing to have an agency like the Canadian Diabetes Association to conduct research and to support those with the disease. So if you haven't already, please do consider making a donation. Visit my website for more information.

And I owe a HUGE thanks to Jeff for his support in this.

Holly