Month: August 2015

Media Snowball – 8.25.15

James-Terri-HiFive

The media snowball continues to grow and grow. The current full list is below. There are still a couple things in the works, and I’ll add to this article as they do.

Daily Herald Article by Marie Wilson

Video by Bev Clark

Marie Wilson talking about us on ABC7

Post-Race Article by Bob Susnjara

Naperville Running Company article by Kim Weeks

Western DuPage Chamber of Commerce Speech (added 12/5/15)

Chicago Triathlon (Bill Bird) (added 07/15/16)

Camp NoSightNoLimits Video (NBC San Diego) — in background (added 1/28/17)

A challenging, but good weekend – 8.21 – 8.23

ba

With about a week to the half marathon, I knew we’d be stepping it up. This is a summary of the weekend —

Friday – 6 mile run through the forest, followed by some really painful stretching.

Saturday – Flag football in the morning followed by a bike session in the afternoon.

Sunday – 10 mile run followed by 40 min in the pool. At about 8.5 miles, my legs started to cramp badly. We still chipped away (less than the 3/1 normal interval), but that last 1.5mi was painful.

While Sunday was the most draining of the weekend, and I hit a wall, that wall keeps moving. A year ago, 1 was struggling at 3mi – now it’s 8.5. And other things are getting easier/better as well. Onward and upward….

The Media Snowball – 8.17.15

JG4

After the Daily Herald articles hit, I had a couple of other organizations ask me to do an interview. More on that later when the media pieces are published.

But the most surprising part of all this was to find a congratulatory card from Senator Connelly. Really nice surprise, and very appreciated!

I have no idea where this snowball will go as it continues to roll downhill. However, I’m happy to do these media pieces as it helps to futher one of my main goals — to have more athletes with disabilities out there. Hopefully what they see will help to get them off the couch and back onto the course!

No rest for the weary… – 8.4.15

run

The clock hands never stop moving… they go from one minute onto the next. Just like that, while I got a day off after the Tri, on Tuesday it was back to work.

The next race is a half marathon at the end of August in Batavia. To this point, the longest that I’ve run is a 10K. So the race will be more than twice that length.

To get back on track, we went and did a 6 mile run. It went well, but the post-run stretching was not.

Race Day – 8.2.15

JG4

So after all the training, race day finally arrived. We showed up at transition to get the final body marking done and set everything up. By 6:45, we were in line to get started in the water, and we took off at 7 with the elites.

The swim was a challenge because people kept trying to swim through us as we were tethered. I also had one d-bag that climbed over me twice. The first time I just pushed him off and back; the second time he just went over. We made it out of the water and back to transition for the bike.

After a long time from the water to bike, we made it out onto the course and did 12 uneventful miles. Back in transition, we made a couple of quick changes and then went out on the run.

At about 1/2 a mile, my IT band (left side), started acting up, and I had to stretch it and walk for quite a while. But eventually everything felt okay to run, and we picked it back up. We finished the race to a cheering crowd (family friends and people in general). There are a couple of great finish pictures that were taken by PEM that I’m still waiting to see.

Our total time was 2:20:37, and we ended up with awards for the PT division. I also ended up being interviewed post-race — the article is here

It was a great day. Thanks to everyone who made it so! I’ve been constantly watching the event site for 2016 registration. Hope to see some of you there!

Christmas Day – 8.2.15

d2tjg

When we did the interviews (print and video), I expected a small story somewhere tomewhere in the inner part of the sports section. So I was blown away when Terri showed up to get me. She had several copies of the paper, and the story was ABOVE THE FOLD! You can read the article and view the video here

You can also view Marie Wilson talking about us on ABC7 here

Christmas in August – 8.1.15

d2tjg

Yes, I’m well aware that Christmas falls on December 25th. However, it’s now figuratively Christmas Eve… in August.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the media piece started as just a print article, then grew into print plus video. Yesterday, I was told that the snowball has grown. Tomorrow on ABC7 Marie Wilson will be sharing my story! She is the reporter that I met with, and who has helped to continue growing this.

I am extremely grateful to her and Bev for everything that they’ve done and continue to do for me. To re-cap for everyone:

Triathlon @ Centennial Beach (Naperville): 7A Start
Daily Herald Print Article – Sunday Edition
Daily Herald Video Piece – Online on dailyherald.com on Sunday
ABC7 Piece – On TV @ 8:45A, online on abc7chicago.com at some point on Sunday or Monday.

Hope to see a lot of you out there tomorrow! 🙂