please donate!

One day back in Austin I realized that I was spending almost as much money on other people's racing as I was my own. Through team in training and other spinoffs, I was getting hit up about once a week for loot.

I'm not a big fan of these fundraising tactics, for many reasons. I started to delete all requests for donations from groups like these. But today one slipped through on the Colorado hash list so I was tricked into reading it.

A nameless CO hasher is trying to raise money for leukemia through TNT by running a marathon. Sounds good, right, after all there are tons of marathons in Colorado and if you can help some sick kid in the process then what the hey.

What the e-mail didn't really point out was that the marathon was not in Colorado but in Anchorage, Alaska.

I gave to my sister for this organization once, and while there are tons of marathons within driving distance of Allentown (NYC, Marine Corps, Philly, Harrisburg, B-more, lots of others) she of course had to travel halfway across the country to do the Disney marathon. Ditto with all the Austin harriettes and their triathlon groups...there are several triathlons in the Austin area but they always have to go to an exotic race thousands of miles away. I'm not a scientist by any means but I fail to see how traveling to a far off race will help anybody get better.

So basically folks in TNT are able to use fundraising as a means to exotic races. There are tons of cool things I want to do in the future. Western States, Bandera, Machu Picchu, the Guinness Brewery.... But I'm gonna work hard and pay for it myself, not piggyback on some poor group of diseased people.

This on top of the fact that the TNT organization encouraged their slower participants to cut over six miles off the last Marine Corps marathon to beat the cutoff time, and allowed the shortcutters to accept the finishers medal.

Anyways, I could rant on and on about this, it's quite the pet peeve of mine.

I'm doing a pretty serious race this Sat, the San Juan Solstice 50 miler. I shouldn't be doing it with what limited altitude experience I have, but I'm not the brightest guy in the world and I'm gonna give it a shot.

And I'm gonna ask all my loyal readers to donate some money to one of my favorite causes. I will literally be running all day on Saturday, and sometime during that time I ask everyone to head down to their local brewpub and enjoy a good pint.

Austinites, head down to the Draft Ho(u)rse, or over to Lovejoy's and support the hash sponsor! DNA or suzy, call my bro and take him to Church Brewworks! Mom, take dad over to Selin's Brew or even up to the Bullfrog.

And I'm not talking about heading to Hooters or Outback or Lil Woodrow's for a coors light. Find a great local bar and find the most local beer you can. You will not be disappointed! And you will be supporting a great cause...local brewers!