GearBuzz - The Groupon for Triathletes, Runners and Cyclists

It's about time, but it looks like we finally have a 'Groupon' all to ourselves.  GearBuzz, brought to you by Competitor Group- the same folks of Rock N' Roll Marathon Series, Triathlete Magazine and Muddy Buddy fame- will offer deals on products and services for the endurance community starting November 21.

I'm excited about it.  I've always been a fan of Bonktown.com, but adding the groupon mentality to it makes it a bit more fun- and we'll probably have 24 hours or more to decide rather than Bonktown's 30 minutes.  Happy shopping!

3 Easy Ways To Say Thank You To Our Veterans

Today is Veterans Day, a day we remember and say thank you to those who've served and given their lives to protect our freedoms.   I decided to ask my friends who are veterans if they suggested any ways civilians like myself might be able to say thank you.  The first two below are organizations that were very near to their hearts, and were suggested by multiple people.  I also included some additional links.

We wouldn't have the lives and freedoms we have today without our soldiers and veterans.  Please make sure to thank them today!

A SOLDIER'S CHILD BIRTHDAY FOUNDATION
The photo above is of a young boy name Christian, son of Staff Sgt. Marc Golczynski, accepting his father's flag at his funeral.  Marc's friend Daryl Mackin realized that Christian would never again receive a present from his father, and that there were children all over the country who would never again receive a present from their fathers or mothers who had lost their lives defending our country.
Christian’s father wrote this in a letter to his mother shortly before he died in combat:

"We are warriors… we fight and sometimes die so that our families don’t have to… Stand beside us."

The goal of A Soldier's Child Birthday foundation is to do just that- stand beside fallen soldier's families.  They aim to honor the memory of the parent by giving a meaningful gift to his/her children on their birthday.  If you'd like to help, you can do so here.

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WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT and THE SOLDIER RIDE

The Wounded Warrior Project assists soldiers who've been injured in action.  Being into triathlons and endurance events, I especially have a heart for the sporting portion of this group. It was great to see the soldiers with the Wounded Warrior Project running at Ragnar Tennessee last weekend.

Next year I hope to ride during another event of theirs, The Soldier Ride.  These rides take place around the country (including Nashville), and raise funds for the project.  If you'd like to donate or participate in a ride, you can do so here.
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Special Operations Warrior Foundation
Special Operations Warrior Foundation provides scholarships and counseling to families and children of fallen or severely wounded special operations soldiers.   You can donate here.

A friend of mine let me know her husband lost his best friend last year in the well publicized Blackhawk helicopter crash, leaving behind his wife and four children- one who had only been with his daddy four weeks of his life.  The Special Operations Warrior Foundation gave his children scholarships.  As she put it so well, "It is strange to have it so close to home.  I think what most do not realize is the compounded effect of the loss of one life. It's not just the families, it's the brothers and friend as well.  Much like a pebble in the lake the ripple is huge! "


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SUPPORT OUR TROOPS (http://troopssupport.com/)
This site contains links to several organizations that support our troops, including Operation Mom, Hugs for Heroes, and others.

It just takes a few minutes to give back and say thanks today!

Running Ragnar TN, 2012!

I'm running 196 miles with my Ragnar Relay team over mountains and through the night (last year, through sleet, rain and snow), 30 hours straight, from Chattanooga to Nashville Friday (aka tomorrow) and Saturday.  Follow, donate (please, it's for an awesome cause!), and cheer!

FOLLOW:
Where are we? We'll be posting handoffs, photos, and videos throughout the day and night!
Twitter @SHMinistry
Facebook.com/servantsheartministry (NOTE: twitter updates will be more frequent)
Youtube.com/12ozofawesome (you can see several videos from last year already, more going on through the race)

In theory, here is where I'll be:
At 1:02PM on Friday- http://www.ragnarrelay.com/race/tennessee/legs/5 (somewhere between Chattanooga and Jasper, TN)
At 11:39PM on Friday night- http://www.ragnarrelay.com/race/tennessee/legs/17 (in the wilderness near Lynchburg, TN)
At 8:35AM on Saturday morning- http://www.ragnarrelay.com/race/tennessee/legs/29 (cruising from Page High School to Trinity Park in Franklin)

DONATE*:
Brian Lord: www.firstgiving.com/brianlord  (Krista, the girls and I will be visiting these kids next spring).

MAPS: http://www.ragnarrelay.com/race/tennessee/course_maps


Thanks for your support!
Brian


*Why donate? TO BRING BACK THE CHICKEN!!!
In a nutshell, this past year, Servants Heart Ministry's donations were down, so they had a tough decision- do they A) still serve chicken, rice, and beans for their meals, but stop feeding as many kids in Santiago, Dominican Republic, or B) feed as many kids, but cut out the chicken. Rob (my good friend, SHM co-founder, and one of our runners) told me the story of the time he had to be the person at the end of the food line, and had the difficult job of telling a grandmother that they didn't have enough food for her grandchild- basically, that they had to turn her away and the child would have to go hungry.  So the decision was made- the kids would lose the chicken, but at least the same number of kids would have something until donations came back up.

So, we've set a goal of raising $2,675 (the cost of chicken for one month for the kids in the program), so all the kids can have chicken (and the much needed protein it provides) for December- sort of a Christmas present. (as of Thursday morning, we're at $1,495)

THANKS FOR HELPING BRING BACK THE CHICKEN!!!

My Top Five Favorite Running/Triathlon Links

Here are my top five favorite running links.  Some, I visit several times a week (or even daily, in the case of Bonktown), and they've all made planning run and triathlon training easier or more fun.

5. Cool Running Pace Calculator-   - I need every little victory I can get, and seeing that I dropped a 6 mile run pace from 9:21 to 9:15 per mile is a big plus.

4. G-Map Pedometer - brought to you by your friends at Google.  I use this to map out all my new runs ahead of time.  You can also use the elevation feature to see where the hills are- if you're training for a race with big hills at miles 3 and 8, you can set up your training run to do the same.  You can also share your routes with friends, or people you're inviting to run with you so they can stake it out ahead of time. Here is the Belmont-Vandy route I ran when I lived in that area. (By the way, all the Vanderbilt people reading this are really upset that I called it the "Belmont-Vandy" route instead of the "Vandy-Belmont" route, and almost made them spit out their chardonnay in disgust at being mentioned after Belmont.)

3. Daily Mile (with Electric Miles App)- .   #5 and #4 have more to do with planning and results. This has more to do with accountability.  Daniel C. White suggested this to me as a way to keep not just friends in the loop, but people who read my blog as well (you can see it over on the right).  It just looks bad if I haven't put anything on for a day or two.  There's also a nice little app (you can find it under Electric Miles in the App Store) that you can put on your phone to more easily download your info, and it just pops up on your blog.  If you decide to friend me on Daily Mile, you'll get to see my picture of when I had an awesome Geraldo mustache!

2. Athlinks-  Once you sign up, it automatically adds in your races (you can usually find the race and add it if it misses).  I love to back and see the 39 of the 40 or so races I've done over the past 8 years, compare all my times, split them up into years or events, and see the improvement.  You can also pull up and compare how you're doing against your 'rivals' (people who you may not even know who run 3 or more of the same races you've run) and your friends as well- kind of a facebook for runners.

1. Bonktown- This site has helped me save a TON of money.  I still strongly encourage folks to make their big purchases from their local bike/running/tri shops- but for certain things or taking risks on new products, Bonktown is great.  Every 20 or 30 minutes, a crazy 50%-90% off deal comes up (you can set it so the bottom right hand of your browser shows what is currently offered). I'd heard how bib shorts are all the rage, but they're three times as expensive as regular bike shorts- UNLESS you get them on Bonktown.com.  I ended up getting a matching Castellini jersey ($99) and bib shorts ($129) for $110 total- not any more than I'd pay for regular bike shorts and a jersey, and they've been great- now I only want to wear bib short. I also get my Accel Hydro ($16 instead of $40) and some various odds and ends there like arm warmers, tri tops, or sunglasses.  Great site.

Secret Tip – How to Pull in Freestyle

Secret Tip – How to Pull in Freestyle

Kick Comics- Habitat for Humanity

Click to Enlarge

 Inspiration for this comic:
Back in my single days, I had a free Saturday and called up Habitat for Humanity to see if they needed any volunteers for a build.  I went where they sent me, and I was surprised to find out that I was only one of four or five guys there, vs. probably 100 women.  While working, I kept getting asked if my wife was there working, too.  "Uh, no.  I'm not married," and then I'd get an odd look.  Turns out Habitat had accidentally sent me to a Junior Leauge "women's-only" build.

What's Your Best Spider or Snake Story?

Corn Spider- actual size

When you end up running 5 or 6 miles with your neighbor several times a year, you have to come up with new things to talk about (after the burping and farting jokes are exhausted, which has only taken us 4 years).

Today we somehow ended up talking about our best spider stories, after we ran under a tree with a beast the size of your hand, hanging in a massive web.  Until the age of seven, I lived on a farm where the cornfield came right up to our yard.  I loved to run through the tall cornstalks (every tall, especially to a 5-year-old) and pretend like I was lost in a maze.  One day I was running at full speed, and nearly ran through a big corn spider's web, which is face high to a little kid. I stopped with the massive black and gold spider a couple inches from my nose, the turned and ran home as fast as I could.

My neighbor Daniel was a city kid who never actually ran through corn fields, so he has no cool spider stories.  Maybe he saw a spider in an airport sometime or something.

The spider discussion led naturally to snakes, and luckily Daniel had a story of finding a copperhead coiled in their garden hose one time, which his dad dispatched by cutting it to pieces with a shovel.  My best snake story (other than seeing a large blue-colored snake sunning itself just under a bridge near our old farm house) came at Davey Ross's 8th birthday party sleepover.  That night I remember being completely freaked out by the giant wolf at the end of The Never Ending Story, and I had to watch both Apple Dumpling Gang I and II in order to come down.  The next morning, we decided to run around outside because Davey's family 'lived on some land', as they liked to say, with a nearby creek.  Not too far from his garage we saw a small water moccasin winding across his driveway.  He ran into the garage, put one of his big, padded, winter mittens with just the thumb, and picked up the water moccasin.  We gathered around in a circle to look. Unfortunately, he'd picked it up in the middle, rather than right under its head.  While Davey was frozen in horror, the snake started whipping its head down, biting and pulling out pieces of the mitten.  Davey came to, threw the snake as far as he could, and then we all sprinted back into the house.  Luckily, Nintendo had recently been invented, so we were able to finish out the morning in a calmer, safer fashion, by battling trolls and Koopa Troopers and what not.

So what is your best spider or snake story?  Comment below!

(If my mom doesn't leave the story of her family's unofficial pet in the comments section, I'm going to be upset!)