Welcome "Team Cisco"

Excited about the Cisco article highlighting Athletes for a Cure on our internal website.

Team Cisco?:

Interested in joining AFAC? You can use any event you like to raise funds, a walk, run, century ride.. You can register to fundraise here.

AFAC have already approached me and suggested that if there is sufficient interest they'd be happy to assist in setting up a Team Cisco where we can work together to raise funds and awareness.. If there is an interest send me an email and I'll gladly coordinate.

Want to support my efforts? You can Donate Here!

Fundraising Update:

There is a lot said this year as the economy is struggling about how to inspire folks to continue to contribute time and energy to raise funds for research..

Perhaps the most compelling argument I've heard is the idea that " a rising tide floats all boats" and the concept of micro giving.

Scott Zagarino who is the Director for AFAC and I were talking recently about how best to raise funds.. Traditionally, if your goal was to raise $5M you'd aim to find 5 $1M donars.. The more modern approach , leveraging today's social networking tools like twitter and facebook, is to instead try and find 1,000,000 people to give $5 each.. Not only do you achieve the same amount of $ but you establish a much broader base of commitment to the cause which will last much longer and have much stronger ramifications.

Motivation:

As you may know Lance Armstrong is racing in this year's Tour De France and raising awareness for cancer research.. Check out this "chalk bot" which is a great story.

LiveStrong!

June Update: Alyce races for Team Maddox

Team Maddox Update:

As you already know, I run for my dad as well as the rest of the 1 in 6. I've also managed to recruited my sister Alyce help in this fight to raise awareness. She's run 2 5k's and will be running in the father's day race with our dad this weekend in London Ontario!

Training Update:

Aside from a small issue with my right IT Band its all good. Been running and adding in more cycling.. Cycled to work for the first time yesterday.. Was 100+ deg for the ride home but a great way to start and end the day.

Motivation:

Here is a video of fellow Athlete for a Cure, Winter who runs for her dad.

Includes a short summary of the triathlon she competed in last week in Oregon.

April Update

TeamMaddox Supporters!

Lots of good news for this week's update so please read on!

Fundraising Update:

Cisco has completed its I-Give process and the Prostate Cancer Foundation (incl Athletes for a Cure which shares the same taxID) is now approved and included in Cisco's Matching Gifts program.  Anyone from Cisco who needs help in getting your donations matched, please let me know and I'll lend a hand.

Training Update:

As you might have noticed on the "daily mile" widget at the right, I did a 15.5 mi run on Sunday and managed an 8mi run last night.

Why you ask?

Well, to train for my first Full Marathon !   I know, after 15.5 on sunday I too wondered if I had a screw loose, however, it didn't stop me from my run last night or my 40mi plan this week.

Not only do I want to run 26.2mi, but I want to qualify for Boston 2010 and do it to raise money for Athletes for a Cure.

I will be publishing shortly a race calender for the year.  Considering San Francisco July 26, Chicago Oct 11 and the California Intl Dec 6.  

Motivation:

The 2009 Boston Marathon took place this past week with the USA finishing third in both the Men's and Women's races.  Some great coverage at Runners World if you are interested.

Here is a great story I saw last week and thought I'd share about Lopez Lemong.

BigD Race Update!

Team Maddox had a great day Sunday in sunny (and cold and very windy) Dallas.

~3500 cold participants enjoyed the event

JohnnyBoy managed a 5th in his ag

e group for the 5k

Michel & Ghislaine manged to break 60min in their first road race 5k

Jeff managed a PR of 1:52:52 in spite of the heavy winds and a course that was hillier that expected.

More importantly, as of this morning my AFAC page shows $5,105 ($3755 + $1,350 matching)!!

I also know there are several other donations that haven't entered and a few matches also not entered.

Thank you to every one of you for your support and generous donations for this great cause. Team Maddox was out in force and already thinking about ways to make our royal blue colors more prominant next race.

Thank You from Team Maddox:

Race Week wk3/wk4 Update

Training Update:

Picked up my race package and will be running for AFAC as Bib#2833!
Training is done, i was noticing on my "dailymile.com" training log that I've done 237miles so far this year!

Also very excited that my father , father-in-law and mother-in-law will be joining me this weekend, they are signed up to be waling the 5k. Dany will be the team photographer.

Fundraising:

I'm happy to update you that we've raised $2235 for PCF / Athletes for a Cure.
Well on my way to the $10,000 goal for this year.

It has been a truly great experience thus far having taken on this initiative not only for the satisfaction of dedicating my training and fundraising to such a great cause that is so close to so many of us.. But even more for the opportunity to get to know so many of my friends and colleagues and to hear their stories of how prostate cancer has touched each of them and their families.


Motivation for this week:

I'm not sure if any of you had seen this video from a professor at Carnegie Mellon. I won't spoil it by offering any further insights, but enjoy.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams


I'll send a Race Update with some photos on Sunday.


J

Friday Morning Motivation

Thanks to "all my friends" who have helped us break through $1500.

Loved this video I saw and thought it was a good idea to say thank to the 90 0f you who've checked out my website and 25 of you who've donated.


Joe Cocker Video

Wk 2 Update

Team Maddox Update for Week of April 24th!

As a starting point I’ve decided to try and follow a simple format to keep you updated on what I figure are a couple key areas to keep this both informative, fun and motivating.

Fundraising:

Well, if I do say so myself, I think week 1 has been a success. PCF is now onto stage 2 of Cisco’s matching gifts program and they are busy filling out all of the required paperwork. In order to qualify for this process I needed 9 other people to conominate the foundation.. I had those within 3hrs of my email and stand at about 17 so far.
I’m also pretty excited that in the first week I’ve been able to raise $1350 for Athletes for a Cure (AFAC). This will likely take another jump once we are able to get the matching gifts online, both by way of folks matching gifts they’ve already made or by having held off until this time to make the first donation.

Team Maddox will be making an appearance in force at the upcoming BigD Race.. We have a few late additions to the 5k field in the >60 age group with Ghislaine, Michel and Johnny-Boy signing up to represent PCF . Dany will be joining them to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t get out of hand while I’m running TheHalf.

Training:

This week was a pretty good week of training.. 3 runs, 1 hockey game and a ride with PBA.

Cycling was an adventure.. I’ve been off the bike since early January.. Weather had played a bit of a roke either by being too cold, too rainy or too windy, so I had been focusing on running with the Too Cold to Hold 15k in January followed by the Texas Half (1:57) in February.. Well, let me tell you, I felt all of the 55mi I put in on Saturday with DB1 (Distance Builder).. We had about 25 riders and did a route out past Wylie Texas.. Finished with an avg pace of almost 19MPH!.. Which is faster than OAS (the group one level faster) last time I rode with them.. Needless to say I felt every day of the 3 months out of the saddle on this somewhat painful reintroduction to the bike.. Its Tuesday as I write this and my backside is finally returning to normal.

Running was a little tougher on the body after last weeks 13.5 long run, so was feeling it a little my knees.. SO far I’m pretty happy with my progress with my average March speed in the 8:45min/mi range, which is ~30s faster than I was running at the start of the year. My goal is to try and get to 1:50 for the Big D Half Marathon and I’ll need to get closer to 8:30 for that to happen. The 7.5mi Sunday run went well, was intended to be a longer run on tired legs (understatement)

This week I am aiming to put in about 22-25mi, then starting my taper next weekend.. Likely attempt to ride again with PBA on Saturday as well, then next week get to rest a little in prep for the race on Apr 5th.

Motivation:

This is a section of my update that I think you will find pretty interesting over time.. I have to say that one of the most pleasant surprises of endurance sports is the fantastic stories I’ve come across so many people with great stories, who’ve often overcome some unbelievable obstacles and find support in triathlon, cycling or running.

Last week I introduced you to Dick and Ricky Hoyt, who I credit with getting me off the couch to start my own journey.
You’ve also heard about Winter Vinecki (teamwinter.org), who at age 10 has raised more then $100,000 for Ahtletes for a Cure.

Do you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders lately? How about the weight of a city bus?
Check out this story about Matt Long. If he can recover and accomplish what he’s done then getting up off the couch can’t be that hard after all.

Hope you have a great week.

J


My Fundraising Page w Athletes for a Cure
PCF: www.prostatecancerfoundation.org
AFAC: www.athletesforacure.org